A True Story of Murder and Betrayal - Too Late to Say Goodbye

Masterful storyteller Ann Rule has presented her millions of readers with another superb account from the true-crime annals, this one set in the burgeoning suburbs of Atlanta and the genteel, flowery city of Augusta. Victims Jenn Corbin and Dotty Hearn are brought to vivid, multi-dimensional life as we are drawn into this complex tale involving two murders more than a dozen years apart. The large cast of characters, including the extended families of both victims and killer, and the law enforcement officers and prosecuting team, are depicted with Rule's customary clarity, fairness, and depth.

Readers will find themselves turning pages deep into the wee hours, unable to put down this newest blockbuster from Ann Rule, the unrivaled best writer in her field.

AS ALWAYS ANN WRITES ABOUT THE WORKINGS OF A MUDERER'S MIND AND THE REASONING BEHIND IT. SHE IS THE GREATEST TRUE CRIME AUTHOR OF OUR TIME AND I HAVE ENJOYED EVERY BOOK THAT SHE HAS WRITTEN. IF YOU HAVE NOT READ ANY OF HER BOOKS BEFORE YOU HAVE MISSED OUT ON A WONDERFUL AUTHOR AND A FINE LADY THAT IS VERY COMPASSIONATE AND LOVES HER FANS. SHE IS ONE OF A KIND, KUDOS TO YOU ANN.

Ann Rule is one of the best living chroniclers of deathly crime. She has her own shelf in this reviewer's TrueCrime Bookcase. But Best True Crime writer ever = Truman Capote (with a lotta help from his friend Nelle Harper Lee*) In Cold Blood. *See Infamous and Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee

Is this Ann's best work?
No.
That distinction, in her very distinguished career in the True Crime genre, goes to Small Sacrifices: A True Story of Passion and Murder. But a not-her-best Ann Rule is better than almost all the rest of the writers in this genre. Ann started in this grizzly biz by happenstance - she was working, just the cozy two of them, on an all-night helpline with a nice, bright, good looking young man. Imagine her surprise when that nice Ted Bundy - Yes, THAT Ted Bundy, was exposed as serial rapist/slayer. So she wrote a book about The Stranger Beside Me (Revised and Updated): 20th Anniversary- and she and we, the readers, found she had a knack for it.

So, Ann's settled in to a routine - a full-length in-detail book and a "summary collection" of crimes that didn't make it to full book, every year. It's become a formulaic forensic science. In the big books, we learn about the crime. We learn the bios of the victim, the perp, and the Law & Order folk involved. Here - the bio of the vicitmS (with an eerie similarity in the crimes - albeit about 15 years apart.) Kind of like Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegone, where "the women are strong, the men are good looking, and all the children are above average," Rule's interviewees are all described as beautiful and handsome and Einstein-intelligent. This reviewer has speculated previously that this must be Ann's way of compensating them for their time spent with her and enticing future potential interviewees regarding crimes as yet to be reported by Rule. The reader is able to view these folk in the center photo pages to judge for her/him self. Which gets us to:
Owen's Ann Rule:
Unless you are the kind of reader who reads the last chapter/denouement of murder mysteries First, do not peek at those photos in the middle of the book until the Law & Order folk have got their man/woman - lest it ruin it all for you.
Which gets me to one of my peeves - and why I'm not going to do it here:
I HATE it when reviewers tell you everything that the author is going to tell you in the book - what then is the point of purchasing it?!?

So, like I said several paragraphs ago, it's another fine entre in the Ann Rule oeuvre.

To borrow a phrase from another Internet purveyor: Buy It Now!

/TundraVision, the store TrueCrime Reviewer

Read it while on an extended hospital stay and it made the time pass quickly. Another good Ann Rule yarn...however, someday I'd like to read a story by her where the husband loves the wife and isn't some obsessive killer! : )

Ann Rule takes you through the lives of those she writes about and makes you feel as though you know them personally. And this book is no different in fact it is superb. Bart Corbin thought he got away with murder 14 years earlier so he tried it again when he felt he was losing control. A must read, you won't be disappointed!!! I can't wait for her next one!

And...again...she delivers with extended research of the people she writes about! The thing I lUV about Ann Rules writing, is of course, the sympathy we FEEL for the victims. I think she strives for this, and we GET IT! Thanks again...ANN!

Great Book. Ann Rule is my favorite writer. The library doesn't carry very many of her books anymore, so I decided to buy them because I can reread them many times and find something new each time. The price was good and the product arrived well-packaged and on time. I recommend the seller.

All Anne Rule books are well researched, written, and interesting. Name one that took you longer than 3 days. This one is no different. While it is great, and the story deserved to be told for the purpose of the memories of the victims, it is not the same intensity as Death By Sunset, 'Stranger..", or Everything She Ever Wanted. This is not due to the writing or research, merely due to the fact that Bart Corbin was just not a very interesting person. He was an egotisical, self-centered man, who thought he could get away with anything. This profile is not rare in true crime novels. Nevertheless, the story is interesting and worth reading.

Nearly perfect wife-victim and suspect-husband-dentist with no redeeming qualities other than being tall, good looking, and witty are the main characters! No big surprises nor twists once the plot has been revealed. Story veered off track, like gossip, in a couple chapters explaining how each set of parents met and married. Like a bad movie, I finished it anyway, but it never improved. I'm surprised, disappointed, and misled by so many high star rankings. Not in my book!

A fairly interesting story told by a less-than-talented writer. Sorry, she may be called the queen of true crime but she's just not that skilled in the craft of writing. Lots of fluff and redundant information presented in simpleton writing that she fails to spice up with a few oddly-placed vocabulary words.

Ann Rule knocked another home run out of the park with this book. I'm sad we won't have any new stories to read from her now that she has passed. True crime is my favorite genre, and Ann Rule was the queen.

This book connects two murders of women 14 years apart. The suspect is not some derelict with a criminal record, but a dentist, albeit not a very good one. Unsuccessful in love, Bart Corbin murders a beautiful dental school classmate and later his wife. Both deaths are thought to possibly be suicides. It's pretty obvious to the reader these women were not suicidal and you knew who did the dirty deeds, but this book is about connecting the dots, all the work the investigators had to do to allow the defendant to be charged.

As always, the character development is first rate as a result of Rule's interviews and research. You really believe you know what makes these people tick. I love lots of pictures in true crime books, and there are more than most in this book. The one picture I did not see that I wanted was a picture of Bart Corbin's twin brother. I highly recommend this book.

The extraordinary story of a man who had the arrogance to commit a second murder, 14 years after the first, in exactly the same manner of the first murder... which had been judged a suicide. He reasoned that the second murder would also be shrugged off as suicide although he did take a few precautions, learning from his previous experience.

Rule included some extremely personal details about the victims, which I felt made them three-dimensional sympathetic characters. I am astounded that he got away with his first murder so neatly and would like to know from US readers - do they have inquests in the USA? Why weren't the discrepancies and puzzling circumstances about this case discussed in an official public forum? Then perhaps Dolly's family would not have waited 14 years for justice.

I also found the story of the online "romance" was heartbreaking and intriguing - this could have been a book all on its own, except that the bizarre coincidence of the online "lover" using the same surname as Dolly might have been the catalyst for what happened next.

I was really interested to read this book because just months before he was arrested, Bart Corbin was doing my root canal. I have to wonder if the stress of everything that was going on contributed to the fact that my new dentist said my root canal was basically a travesty. The tooth ultimately had to be pulled. Anyway, back to the book. Reading this book was like seeing a whole different side to the charming, handsome, always cordial dentist who was quick to smile and crack a joke. I can see how these women fell for him. I loved knowing the story behind all of this. I'm not into true crime at all. This is the first true crime book I've ever read. The whole less than one degree of separation thing was the draw for me.

He was my dentist. I hope they're letting him do dental work for prisoners in jail. He was really good when he wasn't stressed.

In this true crime story of murder and betrayal, the author takes the reader into an exploration of two murders, seamlessly and empathically weaving the stories of the tragic deaths of two young women. Though the deaths were fourteen years apart and in different jurisdictions, the two victims would have one thing in common. They had each fallen in love with the same man, Bart Corbin.

The first woman to die was Dolly Hearn, a beautiful, vivacious, dental student, who met Bart Corbin in dental school, where he, too, was a student. They eventually became a couple but the relationship was quite rocky. Then Dolly met an untimely death by virtue of a gunshot wound to the head, which the police classified as a suicide, despite her parents' belief that she had been murdered.

The second woman to die was Jennifer Corbin, Bart's wife. Bart Corbin, now a dentist, though not particularly successful in his practice of dentistry, was still able to live the American dream. He had a lovely wife, two wonderful children, and a nice home in a great neighborhood in Atlanta, Georgia. There were cracks in that facade, however, and his wife finally decided that she was going to leave Bart, as he was not the man that she had thought he was. Then she, too, met her maker through a gunshot wound to the head. This time, however, the police did not rush to judgment to classify this death as a suicide.

A careful and thorough investigation, fueled by an unexpected lead, led to the police to connect the dots between the deaths of these two young women, resulting in the re-opening of the investigation into Dolly Hearn's death. What the police were to discover and what lead to the arrest of Bart Corbin in connection with these two tragic deaths makes for riveting true crime drama.

A captivating story about a dangerous man who seems very "normal." This was the abridged audio version so it moved very fast. Ann Rule is one of my mom's favorite authors, and after listening to this one, she's one of mine too. If you like murder mysteries, this is a superior re-telling of a beautiful family's unraveling.

For several years, Bart and Jennifer Corbin seemed to have the perfect marriage - including a nice house and two young sons. But there are cracks in the marriage - Bart is having an affair and is too controlling and Jenn starts to look for love elsewhere. Jenn decides to leave Bart and is finally happy, which is why, when her body is found with a single gunshot wound to the head, her family doesn't believe it was suicide. The police aren't convinced either and start digging into Bart's past. Soon they discover that Jenn's not the first loved one Bart has lost - a former girlfriend, Dolly Hearn, also died from a gunshot wound to the head.

"Too Late to Say Goodbye" is Ann Rule's page turning account of the true story of murderer Bart Corbin and his victims Jenn Corbin and Dolly Hearn. As she does so well, Rule recreates the lives of the victims in such a way that by the end of the book readers feel as if they knew Jen and Dolly. Rule also does a good job of looking into Brad's life and what led him to kill. It is creepy to read what Brad did to Dolly after she broke up with him and frustrating to read as she never quite realized how obsessive he was and how the authorities never quite took her seriously. Some of the most interesting parts of the book are as the investigators reopen Dolly's case and step by step prove Bart killed her as well as Jenn.

Jenn's case is the most recent and more sensational (she was involved in an on-line romance that took a very odd twist) but Rule gives equal room to both murders. She is also sensitive to the twists and turns of Jenn's obsession with the on-line game Everquest and her on-line romance - she writes about it matter-of-factly without sensationalizing it. The book is full of pictures of all involved and the pictures of Dolly and Jenn serve to emphasize what a loss both their families suffered.

"Too Late to Say Goodbye" is Ann Rule at her best.

Ann Rule really took this story and captured me! Knowing that it was a true crime story, it left me with trying to do all of the research that I could possibly dig up on this case to find out what has happened since this book's release. It is so compelling! I really enjoyed her style of writing and believe that she truly captured the character's the best that she could to correctly identify them in real life. There was also a movie that came out, which I couldn't hesitate to find and watch and it was good but not nearly as factual and good as the book. It really laid out all of the details of the story and was just truly a great book! I will be sure to add Ann Rule as a must-read author from now on!

Why do we read these true crime melodramas? For the same reason we gawk at car crashes. We can't help our voyeuristic impulses. And we are glad it's not us in the spotlight. This one looks at a Georgia murder where it was obvious the husband did it. The twist is he did once before, too, 14 years earlier, and almost got away with it. You won't learn anything here. You'll be entertained, if your idea of entertainment is reading about domestic murders. There's little doubt they got the right guy, at least in this account. The wife is a bit too beatified by the author, one suspects. And the husband is too evil to be true in this account. It's all black and white, but there must have been shades of gray. Just not here. Worth reading, though, because the author knows how to move the pages along.

WOW!! this author really does her homework! the details she is able to dig up are amazing! i loved how she organized the story itself. i also loved how she drew me in and kept me interested until the very end. i couldn't wait to get home every night to read more!! i have only read a couple of her books, but now i plan to read every one i can get my hands on!! CAUTION: don't look at the photos in the middle of the book until you finish the story. don't get me wrong...i am GLAD she puts them in, but i have found that gives some of the story away for me that i don't want to know until the end!! this time i waited and from now on i will wait until i'm done reading it to look at the photos. its just my personal preference. i truly respect how she does her writings. even though she has been a cop herself, she always waits until the information is no longer top secret police information before she writes or talks about anything. she doesn't use her past to try and outdo any author or the media by using priviledged information. she never divulges police confidentiality to any civilian populations before it is public knowledge. She doesn't need to...her writing is THE best in true crime authoring...HANDS DOWN!! That tells alot about her personality!

As one of America's most respected authors of true-crime sagas, Ann Rule has the luxury of picking the cases she will transform into bestselling epics. Her reputation has placed her in the enviable position of having people contact her to suggest real-life murders that warrant the Ann Rule treatment. Such was the case with Jenn Corbin, who appeared to take her own life in her suburban Atlanta home late in 2004. To make her death even more tragic, her lifeless body was discovered by her seven-year old son Dalton, who ran to a neighbor's house announcing, "My daddy shot my mommy --- I need you to call 911." The police investigation pointed to a self-inflicted gunshot wound as the cause of death.

To their community of Buford, Georgia, Jenn Corbin and her dentist husband, Bart, seemed to be the idyllic couple --- the parents of two boys, Bart was building his dental practice and Jenn was a preschool teacher --- but appearances can often be deceiving. Bart Corbin was a man who was far different in private than in public. In addition to his controlling personality, he was also a womanizer. This combination was too much for Jenn to bear, and shortly before her death, they separated. Divorce was imminent.

Experienced law enforcement officers acknowledge that homicides must be solved quickly, within hours or days. They also will admit that spouses are generally prime suspects when their partner is murdered. The Corbin death had all the markings of a suicide, and the case appeared to be headed to the cold case files of the Gwinnett County Police Department. But hard work and luck are often far superior law enforcement tools than DNA or fingerprints.

Authorities learned about another woman, Dolly Hearn, who had been involved with Bart Corbin years before and had met her death in circumstances remarkably similar to Jenn. One suicide can perhaps be explained, but the odds of two women, romantically linked to the same man, taking their own lives were as remote as one person being struck by lightning on two separate occasions. However, knowing that crimes have occurred and proving them beyond a reasonable doubt are far different animals. TOO LATE TO SAY GOODBYE is the mesmerizing tale of how law enforcement coordinated information from two deaths separated by nearly a decade to convict Bart Corbin of murder.

Americans love their crime. From "Law & Order" to countless courtroom shows and our near-obsession with the real-life crimes of O. J. Simpson, Scott Peterson and others, we are fascinated with the workings of the legal system. Ann Rule is one of the elite true-crime writers, producing books that cause people to wonder if they are reading fact or fiction. >From Ted Bundy to the Green River Killer who stalked and murdered for decades to Dr. Bart Corbin, Rule paints a picture of crime that readers will be unable to put down. Page after page yields the story of an incredible absorbing crime that almost went unsolved.

TOO LATE TO SAY GOODBYE is the quintessential true-crime story. Prepare yourself for a few late nights of reading.

--- Reviewed by Stuart Shiffman

This tale of two murders is truly amazing. I didn't know anything about this case before I picked this book up, and there were a couple of plot developments that almost took my breath away. But while the saga is spellbinding, the storytelling is just so-so. Every aspect of the lives of those involved are explained in great detail. Much of the investigative process is examined closely, too. Then, it seems, once Dr. Bart is put in jail, boom-boom-boom, time is telescoped, everything happens in a matter of pages, and The End. As workmanlike as Ann Rule's work is here, she deserves applause for the careful way she depicts Dolly and Jenn. It would have been easy to sensationalize certain aspects of both women's lives, but Ms. Rule instead chooses respect and compassion.

It is a travesty that Richmond County Deputy Sheriff Paul Johnson moved the .38 revolver from where he first found it at the scene of Dolly Hearn’s death. This police officer wasn’t trained properly or had a serious error in judgement. Just think, if this deputy wouldn’t have touched that firearm, maybe Brad would have been found guilty, Jenn Corbin wouldn’t have been murdered and two children, several families , friends and communities wouldn’t have such devasting losses.

I just finished reading the book this morning, and as usual, Ann Rule did a great job. From the first line, you are sucked into a story that just doesn't seem real, like something you would see on a made for TV movie. How is it that Bart Corbin could get away with this for so many years following Dolly Hearn's death? I was literally creeped out reading the part about him being in Dolly's bathroom, hiding behind the door, and being seen by someone that came to see her the day she died. Dolly did not know he was there, and Bart didn't know that he was seen until later on. It's horrifying to think of what happened to her and to his wife Jenn, and know that this man had no conscience or any remorse for what he'd done. There are also some other tidbits that I won't spoil, but that will definitely have you questioning if there's more to the story. This book is well written and keeps you captivated from start to finish. I definitely recommend it!

Gripping. Stomach turning. Fast read. All these things can be said abt most all of Ann Rules books. This story I remember from headlines. Tragic story told with much respect and left you feeling like you knew the families. Glad this monster is off the streets.

Of course there will be be some that disagree with the title of my review but I'm sticking to it! I have every one of Ann's books, and I have not been dissapointed. The lady can tell a story. I purchased this book with seconds to spare before I had to board a plane from ATL to LAX. Oh what a sad story this is.. Bart Corbin(the villan) through his own admission, took two lives for absolutely no reason at all other than to satisfy his own pychotic, demented views: They were going to leave him, and he couldn't let that happen. Two families devasted, children left without a mother, and the senseless loss of a loved one, taken in an instant by a monster. This is a horrible story whether or not you like the way it was written. I wish I could give it 10 stars.

Ann Rule is one of my favorite true crime writers. She tells a story of two women who have loved Dr. Bart Corbin and both die with gunshot wonds to their heads.
The first is Dr. Corbin's girlfriend, Dolly Hearn and it is made to look like a suicide. The police have some suspensions but are unable to prove anything at the time of the death. Fourteen years later Dr. Corbin's wife Jenn is found dead by gunshot in their home by their 7 year old son. Read this facinating story and find out how it ends.

Many are in search of true love...but be cautionary and careful. As a woman in the dating arena for 30 years, I read this and realized it's never safe to assume. Thank you Ann Rule for writing about a man who, although prosecuted for two women's deaths, was most likely responsible for more.
This book is a guide for any woman who lives alone, corresponds on-line with potential dates, or just interracts daily with a man who may become a romantic interest. Do your homework and read this book...Bart Corbin is an example of how you may be played.