Bitter Harvest

Having lived this story / report I found this book as a very accurate record of the Tragicomedy this family lived. I worked in a KC hospital where Dr. Greene worked and knew her husband because we saw him as a cardiologist .and when he came to the place I worked. Debra Green should be kept locked up for ever.

Penny

I liked the story and everything that lead up to the tragedy but thought it went in to too much detail and the author repeated so many things over and over. This book could have been much shorter if it wasn't so drawn out.

As usual this lady created another WINNER of a book! I expected it to be a delightful read but it kept me up till daylight as I could not find a good stopping place. I really have all the admiration for this author. This is one of her very best!

Story of a couple - two doctors with three kids. Wife probably had borderline personality disorder. She showed great promise through medical school, but began struggling when it came to actually practicing medicine and interacting with patients and other staff. She lacked something fundamental to human relationships. Therefore, she ended up reviewing medical records from home as a job.

Her husband did have a successful private practice. Neither one of them had a lot of experience with romantic relationships when they married, and they really grew apart over the years. They lost any romantic relationship.

They went on a trip to Peru with a group, including the wife of a doctor whose marriage was falling apart due to her husband's serious depression and inability to get help or improve. Back home, the husband began an affair with this woman. When his wife discovered the affair, she tried to argue and guilt him into staying married to her.

After that stopped working, and they split up, the wife decided that a tragedy would bring them together again. She set fire to the home she was living in with their three children.

My book club selected this book as our monthly reading. I had been unaware of Ann Rule as an author, and believed that this book was a work of fiction. After about a hundred or so pages into the reading, I just felt that the plot was a little over the top. Not only was the family dysfunctional, but the people around them seemed equally dysfunctional, and to me, this was totally unbelievable. Much to my surprise, however, this is NOT a book of fiction, but a recounting of an actual TRUE crime! I came back to the book with a fresh set of eyes, and couldn't put it down! In the end, it's a sad story, and one that could have had a happier ending had people/physicians/therapists been able to recognize a pyschological illness in a person who seemed to have everything going for her.

Ann Rule is at a disadvantage with this book... usually she makes use of diaries, interviews or letters to fill in the blanks about a murderer's character, but Debra Green remains a stubborn silent enigma. There are plenty of second hand accounts about her wit and her knack with children but no first hand anecdotes to bring this woman to life. At the same time, her husband comes across as a disturbingly detached man, who suggests to his widowed girlfriend that her son could see a therapist to get over "divorce". He also freely admits that the fact Debra was quite well-off when they met was an incentive for romance. How did these two people find each other?! They both came across as people who stick with marriage for the sake of identity and convenience rather than happiness.
Despite the obvious gaps in narrative, I found the this tale of poison and fire was extremely compelling and the secondary characters were strong and believable. SPOILER ALERT: I wish Ann had used a little editorial discretion, and not published the defendant's argument that her son was actually responsible for poisoning her husband. I don't believe it and even if it were true, it should not have been published after his death when he can't defend himself. If a young boy was capable of repeatedly poisoning his father in between watching him be hospitalized, then perhaps some tragedies are for the best. I don't believe it. She was the one who bought the seeds.

Great read! So heartbreaking and tragic to think a person could do such heinous things. And to her own children!!! ? Beautifully written. Easy to follow the events as described by the author according to her interviews and accounts. Although the author tends to repeat details a bit, it serves as more of a review of facts rather than a nuisance. Definitely recommend this book especially to True Crime fans ❤️

I remember when this actually happened. I remember being at the funeral and thinking how strange Dr. Green seemed- my parents were more upset than she was it was her children being laid to rest. It had taken me all of these years to read this book and I really had forgotten a lot of details or perhaps was shielded from some. I thought Ms. Rule's detail was extraordinary and for those who believe she didn't understand her subject or was not sympathetic enough to Dr. Green- the facts are that Dr. Green was an angry and bitter woman who put accelerant in the path of her kids bedrooms so they could not escape their rooms. I hope Ms Rule can not relate to her- she is exactly were she needs to be so she can never hurt anyone else including herself. God bless Dr Farrar and Kate- I hope they have found some kind of peace through this all.

I have read dozens of true crimes, including several of Ann Rule's books, and I thought this was one of her worst efforts. Mike and Debora obviously had a troubled marriage and Debora appears to have had some mental difficulties. Yet Rule ends up painting Debora as an evil person in true "movie of the week--mom killing babies" style. Rule has done this in previous books but in those books (which involved cases such as a man who battered a number of wives and killed one of them, and a mother who shot three of her children at point-blank range) the protagonists seemed to deserve the negative portrayal more than Debora does. Rule attempts to tell a balanced story by incorporating interviewee's critical comments about Mike Farrar as well but then, when she writes her own prose, she always justifies Mike's actions and paints Debora as a monster. I felt that Debora simply needed psychiatric attention or that her action may have had its roots in her childhood, which is barely explored.

In general, there is insufficient detail given to make a whole book out of this story. It would have worked better as a novelette in one of Rule's collections. it looks as if it were dashed off in a week in hopes of a fast sale to a TV network, "Amy Fisher style". I actually ended up by feeling sorry for Debora rather than thinking she was the evil monster painted by Rule.

Debora Green Farrar was truly a doctor in need of a doctor. Brilliant and severely mentally ill, she abused drugs early in her marriage to Dr. Mike Farrar. Loving and patient, he desperately tried counseling Debora, pointing out that drug abuse would hurt her medical career and would negatively impact the lives of their three children. Debora's behavior grew even more alarming and erratic and at one point, she had to be hospitalized.
Debora did not appear to have any concept of how children and adults differed. For example, she would confide in her oldest child, Tim adult concerns and issues. She would enlist Tim's support to undermine Mike's positions.
Their youngest child, Kelly, appeared to have an adult savvy into Debora's problems. Bright and empathetic, Kelly would make overtures to Debora when the latter was lost in a volatile rage or off on a bizarre tangent. A poignant display of Kelly's empathy occured when Kelly, then 6, offered to brush Debora's hair "so she would look nice in the hospital." Kelly was described as bright and affectionate and seemed to be able to cope with Debora's bizarre mood swings.
The one thing nobody could cope with was Debora's adultery and pyromania. In October of 1995, she set the family house on fire (by then she and Mike had parted company) and two of her children perished. Lissa, the middle child was the only survivor of the Debora - Mike union. One can only hope and pray that she is healing, along with the burn scars she suffered during the holocaust of 1995.

I just finished this book today -- the second Ann Rule book I've read this week (the other was _Heart Full of Lies_).
As I've said about Ann's books before, she has a tendency to repeat information, and it gets tedious sometimes. I particularly noticed this during the court trial section, where much of that information was given in earlier parts of the book.
However, despite the repetition, this book outlines a very sad and tragic case. I have a hard time reading books where children are the victims, and this one was no exception; many times I had tears when I had to read about the kids.
Unlike the other books I've read by this author, I noticed that there was no clear good person v. bad person in this case. Yes, Debora is quite demented and obviously is mentally unstable, however, her husband can't quite win any awards for honesty and truthfulness. His affair added another degree of tragedy to an already horrific situation. I hope that the remaining daughter is able to live some sort of normal life, despite all she's been exposed to.
For those of you who read Ann's books regularly and are continually amazed at how warped some of these killers are, you won't be disappointed with this novel.

I read this book (in German) over the weekend, and could not put it down. Fascinating! What it did was make me appreciate all the nice, sane people I have in my life -- even if they're not perfect, they're a lot better than the characters in the book. I did have a problem with some of the tale, though -- I did not think it presented a fair picture. For example, I thought Mike should definitely have made some other moves a lot earlier. How could he think that it would be right to leave his kids with a woman who was drinking to the point of oblivion, who had tempertantrums in public, and who actually tried to kill him? A woman who did not have any friends? ... And yet, I can tell you how he could think this. He could think this because HE had not spoken to anyone about the problems earlier -- at least not to enough people. He thought that to take the kids away would be to punish her too much, and he felt guilty -- either about the affair, or leaving, or something. What this book has made me realize is the importance of intervention -- as Deb points out in a statement included in the end of the book. It is extremely difficult to intervene in the life of another person, but you have to try. If someone is acting really weird, find out why. Try to get them help. Don't wait for tragedy.

Rule is well-known for her true crime writing and justifiably so. Ever since Truman Capote popularized the form in In Cold Blood, true crime has become a popular genre.
This harrowing book tells the story of Dr. Debora Green, a very bright Kansas physician whose life unraveled into a nightmare of murder and virtual insanity. After her trial for the murder of two of her children and the attempted murder of her husband, Michael Farrar, psychiatrists attempted to answer why something like this could have happened. Their diagnosis was that Dr. Green had a limited ego, was a very immature person with the emotional responses of a small child. Ostensibly, she was able to function quite well, until her marriage and the pressures of raising a family began to stress her life. She had an IQ of 165 and had zipped through medical school, married a brilliant cardiologist, and borne three children. The family lived in a large house in the Kansas City suburbs.
By the end of the story Debora had become a violent and irrational monster who had driven away her husband, as she descended into a maelstrom of alcohol, drugs and invective. In hindsight, a house fire that destroyed an earlier home was probably her doing. The final straw was apparently her husband's affair with Celeste Walker, a nurse whose physician husband had committed suicide. The family had returned from a long-awaited vacation to South America, when Mike became deathly ill. He could keep no food down and suffered constant diarrhea. His condition puzzled the clinicians because the symptoms did not seem to match anything in their knowledge base. The only thing they could think of was that perhaps Mike had picked up some kind of virulent bug while traveling, but none of the others who had been on the trip had suffered anything beyond the normal traveler's stomach problems that quickly disappeared.
Bouts of his illness always seemed to come after he had been released from the hospital and had eaten food served by his wife. After what seemed - to me - an interminable period he began to suspect that perhaps Debora might be trying to poison him. One afternoon when she was out, he searched her purse and discovered several packages of Castor beans. Warnings on the package labels revealed that these beans contain a very toxic poison called Ricin. Normally, the beans could be swallowed whole without much difficulty because they had such a hard shell, and the beans would pass through the system without causing any ill effects, but if crushed, they could be terribly destructive. Mike also realized his wife had just finished an Agatha Christie novel in which the murder is committed using Ricin.
Several months later, a fire, clearly arson, broke out in their house. Mike had moved out in preparation for a divorce. Two of the children died, trapped in their bedrooms by a fire, fed with accelerants, that blocked access to the hall and the stairs. The responding police and firemen were immediately struck by the mother's bizarre behavior, talking of her children in the past tense, even before anyone knew whether they had been killed or not. Eventually, she confessed to all charges and escaped the death penalty with a guilty plea.
A truly tragic story spellbindingly told by Rule, a master of the genre.

I just finished re-reading this book, and went in search of additional info (my edition is several years old). It is a good book, in that it tells the basic tale. If Ann had been able to spend more time with Deborah Green, AND if she had been allowed to take notes or a recorder into her one interview, we perhaps would have a better picture of Deborah.
Incidently, some of the reviews talk about Ann being soft on Michael Faraar, Deb's now ex-husband. And several point out that her daughter still loves her. I didn't think that Mike got off soft--he committed adultery. But trying to portray one of the victims as a "bad guy" doesn't go oover well with the public/reader. And her daughter's love for her mother is normal. Ted Bundy's mother continued to love him even after he confessed. That is what family is supposed to do.

As for those who continue to believe Deborah is innocent, check out how many times she has changed her story. And if Prozac fogged her mind so she couldn't participate in her own defense, then all those people who take it and work for a living should be having problems too--and they don't. Of course, I suspect that Deborah's few "true believers" are mostly blood related, or deluded (keep in mind ted Bundy got love letters in prison). Read the book, check out her ever changing stories via newspaper articles.

While this book had great potential, I think, when compared to other true crime thrillers, it fell far short of the mark. Rule spends far too much time with little details and fails to give us the nuts and bolts of what makes a true crime thriller really interesting--the personality behind the criminal. Rule lacks both the hypnotically lyrical prose of And The Sea Will Tell and the mesmerizing look at the man (Jeffrey MacDonald) behind the mask in Fatal Vision. This book is ultimately sad, as all true crime thrillers are, but it is really not worth the time and effort. I feel terribly sorry for the children involved, who were the true victims. The husband will have to live with the consequences and accept his share of the blame. Bitter Harvest is definitely not Rule's best effort. Look elsewhere this time.

This is a true story about a disturbed mother who does the unthinkable and murders two of her three children. Ann Rule digs deep into the background of her characters setting the stage for where they are psychologically when they commit the crime and then takes you through the courtroom as they stand trial. Her books are always compelling reads and hard to put down.

So, I just picked up and finished Bitter Harvest this week. I felt the book was extremely slanted and left little to be desired in terms of suspense or plot twist. What's more - there HAS to be a way for Ann Rule to drive her point home without repeating key plot elements verbatim over and over again. Often times, I would put the book down, only to find when I picked it up again, I felt I had accidentally lost my place and gone backwards. Seriously, paragraphs and paragraphs of unnecessary repitition litter this otherwise gripping story of a mother driven to horrific revenge to "punish" her husband for his actions. Yes, this is true crime and consistent details among third parties are key - but hearing the same phrases about the father, Mike, again and again certainly supported the fact that Deborah had turned the kids against him - but really, they were mentioned no less than four times throughout (often by the same people, in different conversations) - just to make sure we "got it." Paraphrasing the trial portion also would have been nice. I could have (and did) skip ahead just to get to the climax - after all the story is written in such an anti-Deborah fashion that my mind was made up after the first chapter. After that, there's Mike's letter and an Epilogue which adds no insight or clues that weren't already brought to bear earlier in the book.

Overall the story drags at times and could've been more concisely written. But Ann Rule is the master - so I'm not sure who could've told it better... I was hooked on her style after reading The Stranger Beside Me many years ago. This won't be the last book of hers I read.

While this book had great potential, I think, when compared to other true crime thrillers, it fell far short of the mark. Rule spends far too much time with little details and fails to give us the nuts and bolts of what makes a true crime thriller really interesting--the personality behind the criminal. Rule lacks both the hypnotically lyrical prose of And The Sea Will Tell and the mesmerizing look at the man (Jeffrey MacDonald) behind the mask in Fatal Vision. This book is ultimately sad, as all true crime thrillers are, but it is really not worth the time and effort. I feel terribly sorry for the children involved, who were the true victims. The husband will have to live with the consequences and accept his share of the blame. Bitter Harvest is definitely not Rule's best effort. Look elsewhere this time.

After hearing so much over the years about the quality of Ann Rule's books, I finally picked up this one and was prepared to be enthralled. Indeed, the story is fascinating, but Rule's treatment leaves something to be desired. She does provide meticulous detail, and the book certainly kept me reading. However, I found it finally unsatifying for several reasons.
Rule telegraphs too much too soon about who is going to be the "villain" of the story, and her presentation of the Farrars' marriage is far too black-and-white. For a relationship to have deteriorated to such horrific depths, both partners were surely more to blame than Rule seems willing to suggest. The spouse whom Rule paints as the complete victim strikes me as having been, at the very least, a fool to the point of criminal negligence. Yet, at every turn, the author inserts an excuse for that individual's actions.
Most frustrating to me was that hinted-at revelations about the guilty party's character never materialize. Rule drops teasers into her text that she never follows up on. For example, on page 27 of the hardcover edition, the supposed good spouse is "the last to know why" the partner behaves in a certain way, but that is the last we ever hear about it. Similarly, on page 322, a psychologist comments on "life experiences that happened...as a preadolescent" that contributed to the guilty party's mental state, and one is led to expect some explanation. It never comes. Ultimately we understand very little about who this person is--or why.
Because I gather that other books by Rule are considered better than this one, I may give her work another try. This book seemed lazy to me--substituting repetition, regurgitation of data, simplistic moralizing, and purple prose for any true insight.

As usual, Ann Rule is a Master!!!! This book was a moving and realistic telling of a most horrendous crime. Ann Rule writes in a way that you know you despise the murderer, but feel empathy also..... I will continue to search out her books...

I have every book written by Ann but unfortunately she can write them faster than I can read. I work a lot and have to fit reading in 10 minutes here or a whole hour there, so it usually takes me a couple of months to get a book read. I took Bitter Harvest on a cruise and could not put it down! The story is so sad, to think that a Mother could kill her own children to hold on to their Father in a failing marriage. Honey, when he doesn't love you, he doesn't love you, you can't make him through the children. This woman had so much intelligence and yet no common sense. Like I said the whole time I was on the cruise I didn't want to do anything but read--how can that be?? I loved my cruise but the book was one of Ann's best. All the time and research that is put into each and every book is evident!!

I think this is a very good, if incredibly tragic, story. Obviously Dr. Debora Green is guilty of the crimes of arson, capital murder, and attempted murder (of her husband Dr. Michael Farrar), but Dr. Farrar is himself hardly the sainted victim that the author paints him to be.

As for Debora "letting herself go" and the condition of the home, this coupled with her drinking ought to have been enough for ANY trained physician to have her evaluated for depression. So why didn't her husband do this? Why did he leave his children in that home and situation?

Although I do not for a minute believe that anyone but Debora Green is responsible for pouring the accelerant and lighting the fire that consumed her home and took the lives of Tim and Kelly (and shame on her for letting her lawyers accuse Tim of doing it!), and I do also believe that she poisoned Mike with the castor beans (ricin poisoning), I think a lot of this could have been avoided if someone (and I mean Dr. Michael Farrar) had taken a little responsibility and put a little effort into getting Debora some help. At the very least, he should have fought to remove his children from Debora's control.

All around, a sad and tragic story...Debora Green, so full of promise and intelligence, is now doing a hard forty and will likely die in prison. Tim and Kelly Farrar had their lives cut short in a dreadful act of rage. "Lissa" has lost both of her siblings, her beloved pets, her innocence, and, in many ways, her mother. But hey...Michael Farrar is happily remarried, and all is well that ends well, right? (Yes, that is sarcasm.)

If you loved "Small Sacrifices" and "All She Ever Wanted", you'll find this book a welcome addition to your library. Ann Rule is at her best when she's slowly unwrapping a warped personality and she's certainly found the perfect subject in Dr. Debora Green. Brilliant and mercurial, Dr. Green is a surprising murderer - but the wonderful Ms. Rule shows us exactly how, why and when the murders were committed by this misguided physician. When the book is done, all you're left with is complete clarity in how Dr. Green did what she did. The resulting shivers are just a bonus.

What a horrible story about a horrible mother who would sacrifice her own children for own being. Dr. Debora Green had what most of us would consider to be a great life. She was a well-respected doctor with a beautiful home in Kansas City, married with three children. One night, she decides to burn her house down with her children losing one for her own purposes. Debora was a bright yet plumpy woman who was definitely troubled and should have seeken psychiatric assistance rather than murdering her own children in a horrific matter. Unlike Diane Downs in Small Sacrifices, Dr. Green had quite a future in the medical field but like Diane Downs, she would rather lose her children for her own selfish motives.

Ann Rule has set an exacting standard of excellence in truecrime writing...one that few authors can emulate. However, her recent book,"Bitter Harvest" was a disappointment. The story choice was intriguing (as are all her choices) but it seemed like she spent most of the story rehashing and repeating the same information that was explained in the first hundred pages. Her stories are usually overflowing with descriptions and evaluations and character analysis but not this time. We still love you Ann but please...bring back the old "Ann Rule Standards for Excellence" for your next book.

I read everything Ann Rule writes because she takes the time and trouble to try to figure out the "why" of these horrific things. I was left with the same confusion as another reader, which is a brief overview of the kind of woman who can tell the son who adored her to go back into the house and "wait for help". I think there's a lot more to her than simply a woman with too high an IQ, a sleep-around husband, and a lot of anger. I wish Ann could write a sequel and cover that issue. All in all, a worthwhile book, leaving the reader with a lot of questions.

The reader knows Ann Rule always delivers a tightly woven true crime account. Here she builds the suspense while detailing the seemingly ordinary lives of a pair of physicians and their children. Gradually she unveils the fatal flaws running through their lives.

You see a high achieving young woman turn poisonous as later her life stalls. She attacks herself, her husband, and finally her children when she can't have what she wants.

The author investigates the early lives, the careers, family interactions, the crime, and finally the trial. Through it all, the horror unfolds, keeping the reader captivated.

Ann Rule has set an exacting standard of excellence in true crime writing...one that few authors can emulate. However, her recent book,"Bitter Harvest" was a disappointment. The story choice was intriguing (as are all her choices) but it seemed like she spent most of the story rehashing and repeating the same information that was explained in the first hundred pages. Her stories are usually overflowing with descriptions and evaluations and character analysis but not this time. We still love you Ann but please...bring back the old "Ann Rule Standards for Excellence" for your next book.

Ann Rule is my favorite. The subject of this book wasinteresting as all of her choices always are. Somehow with this book I was left wanting more. I felt as if there were details of importance to better understand the story that were left out. Maybe it's just me. I have to admit that I was left a bit confused on the poisoning issue. But not blaming that on Ann Rule, the answers were just not there. Nevertheless, having bought the book only yesterday and finishing it about an hour ago, like all of her fine books, it was a "no put downer"!

A crazed female doctor...so jealous about her husband's affairs and her own issues of self worth that she would get drunk and torch her own newly bought, beautiful home with her children in it just to prove a point. This is one of a kind with a terrific author to chronicle each misstep. I love true crime because it always makes me feel better about my own life and helps me take my mind off my own problems. Any woman, as smart as her, who could make it through med school, drive fast cars, get her own man and still end up a fat worthless slob makes me feel like a million bucks! LOVE THIS BOOK. Have read it many times over.

As usual, Ann Rule (the master of true crime) grips the reader from page one. I found this case to be fascinating, and yet thoroughly tragic. I am quite surprised by the several reviews here that question Dr. Debora Green's guilt. Not only did she plead no-contest, but SHE CONFESSED TO HER OWN ATTORNEYS that she started the fire that killed her children (her attorneys were quite supportive of her, and would have no reason to lie).

I think that Dr. Green's claims of innocence now are nothing but her way of refusing (yet again) to accept the reality that she killed her own children, and poisoned her husband. Perhaps at this point she truly has convinced herself that the didn't do it.

Forget the evidence (which was overwhelming), she confessed that she started the fire!!!!!!

One more thing: Rule does portray her long-suffering husband as being almost perfect, but towards the end, I felt that Rule acknowledged that he had many issues himself, and was far from the perfect husband and father. At the same time, the real cause of all this tragedy rests solely on the shoulders of Debora Green, who I doubt will ever admit what she did.

This was a deeply disturbing and at the same time a fascinating story. Ann Rule is an expert at building the supense without giving away the "truth" about what actually happened and who did what until late in the book. She manages to portray the characters in a way that makes you think you know them, and even as you begin to realize that the guilty party has done the unspeakable, she paints a picture of the whole person, and you find yourself feeling if not true empathy, at the least a grudging amount of sympathy for the characters involved. This was an emotional roller coaster and difficult to deal with at times, but it is well worth the read, and perhaps may at some point in time come to be a vehicle that could help prevent such a tragedy to again occur. Although I find it so hard to believe, that this particular situation could ever happen again, I just as surely thought this could never happen. I am sobered by the fact that it indeed can happen, and I will never again look at the warning signs of a dysfunctional family in quite the same way. Thanks Ann for your wonderful, insightfull book.

"Bitter Harvest" is a well-written and absorbing book about a very dysfunctional and cruel woman.Debora Green is a doctor,wife,and mother who is a miserable failure at all three roles.She can't stay employed anywhere for long,terrorizes her husband and manipulates her kids until they are as messed-up as she is.When her husband (finally)decides to leave her she attempts to poison him to death and then burns down her home with her children trapped inside.She kills two of her three kids and then in a final act of cruelty and selfishness she tries to blame her deceased 14-year old son for her actions.This book is interesting if somewhat depressing.It's worth a read if you are a true crime fan.A note to people who read all the other reviews on this book:I suspect a lot of the negative reviews on this book that are supposed to be from a "friend of Debora's"are actually being written by Debora her-self.This is a tactic she employed often-writing notes that praised her to the skies and criticized her husband that were always signed"a friend of Debora".Prisoners in medium security prisons (and some maximum security prisons as well) almost always enjoy internet access through the prison library and some even have computers in their cells.Plus, it would be her personality type to want to know what people were saying about her and try to control what people think.That's my two cents anyway.

Sad story of once brilliant Dr. who turned pathetic lost sole, clinging to husband, brainwashing children, and does the unthinkable of destroying lives. Her husband tried to get help but it was late in the game and he fueled the fire by cheating on her and coming out innocent. What happened to a bright person who had EVERYTHING?? Why did this happen, Dr. Green and husband got together for the wrong reasons, it is obvious. Amazing story.

This was a deeply disturbing and at the same time a fascinating story. Ann Rule is an expert at building the supense without giving away the "truth" about what actually happened and who did what until late in the book. She manages to portray the characters in a way that makes you think you know them, and even as you begin to realize that the guilty party has done the unspeakable, she paints a picture of the whole person, and you find yourself feeling if not true empathy, at the least a grudging amount of sympathy for the characters involved. This was an emotional roller coaster and difficult to deal with at times, but it is well worth the read, and perhaps may at some point in time come to be a vehicle that could help prevent such a tragedy to again occur. Although I find it so hard to believe, that this particular situation could ever happen again, I just as surely thought this could never happen. I am sobered by the fact that it indeed can happen, and I will never again look at the warning signs of a dysfunctional family in quite the same way. Thanks Ann for your wonderful, insightfull book.