Customer Reviews

Father of the Year (Berkley True Crime)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Unless Glenn Puit writes another true crime book this year his Father of The Year certainly makes Puit crime writer of the year. If not the decade.

His account of the life and crimes of Los Vegas swindler and killer Bill Rundle bristles with detail, substance and perspective that can only be written by a journalist with the experience Puit applies to the story. It's an enthralling tale of mystery and heartbreak.

Puit seems to have interviewed everyone who has any importance in this story: Cops, prosecutors, defense attorneys, witnesses, friends and enemies. And, of course, Rundle himself. The only people who aren't interviewed are dead or missing and for them the author relies on records and witnesses to fill in the gaps.

There is a sense of character created for everyone described. You get the idea that these are all real people working hard to do their jobs. The detail is sufficient for readers to form an opinion about someone, but it's not tedious. There is a flow that keeps you reading long into the night.

In most respects Rundle is a mediocre guy living an uninteresting life. He's not on a crime spree and he doesn't make a living through crime. But in the end he steps over the edge in a big way.

Puit chronicles all this in writing that really does transcend the page.

Anyone who likes true crime will love this book. But if you're not sure go to a book store and start reading Chapter 7, Bringer of Death. Three things will happen. First, you will finish the chapter right there in the book store and second, you will experience that empathetic pain that only a parent can feel and, third you will buy the book. Puit is that compelling, that good of a writer.

I guess what struck me about this guy Bill Rundle was that even the court bailiff at the end said he was "so normal" and "such a nice guy." How could a man so bland, so casual take a baseball bat to the head of his "nice wife?" By all accounts, his wife Shirley was the sweetest woman alive--but then she was dead by his hand. He even dumped her body like trash on a remote highway, then went off to buy season tickets to games he could wager bets on. He definitely seemed to have a very split personality. How could he be a devoted dad to his diabetic son (who was later violently killed in an accident) yet virtually ignore his first two wives and children? Was he spoiled by indulgent parents? Coddled? Never held accountable for his actions? How could he be so charming that he made friends wherever he lived yet be so utterly cold? This man Rundle is the puzzle of all time, but he did commit a brutal murder of someone he supposedly loved, so he's in prison where he should be. I can't really call this book gratifying, but it's a fascinating study of a very complex person.

The story of Bill Rundle is a compelling study of the contradictions and dark secrets that can mar the life of an otherwise normal man. Raised by loving and stable parents, one has to wonder why Rundle himself is so psychologically warped and selfish.

Bill Rundle convinced his parents that he was attending college for the better part of 3 years. Instead, he devoted his time to the maintainance of a compulsive gambling habit that remained throughout his life. When it was time to "graduate," Rundle produced a phony diploma. Married 4 times, Rundle was a restless and unhappy man who often quieted the demons within with alcohol.

Rundle abandoned his first wife, along with the young son he fathered with her. He simply left the house one morning and never returned. While his young wife had assumed he maintained a stable job, Rundle instead worked for Loan Sharks as a "collector," and thought nothing of gambling away the money his family needed. Bill Rundle then created a separate identity and married his second wife under a fictitious name. Again, he disappeared one morning and never came back, leaving his pregnant wife devastated.

Rundle's 3rd marriage was similarly unsuccessful, although he did father a son, Richie, whom he professed to love dearly and raised for many years as a single father following the collapse of his third marriage. When Rundle met his 4th wife, Shirley, he appeared to make an effort for many years to play it straight. He helped raise a step-daughter and Shirley and his son were very close.

When Rundle's son was killed in a tragic drunk driving accident, he lost perhaps the only person he ever truly cared about, although Rundle's apparent love for his son is not without some suspicion. While there is no question Rundle did care for and protect his son, this defies the psychological and behavioral patterns established by a man who appears, on many levels, to be a psychopath. Why abandon two children and dote on a third? It is but one of the mysteries of the mysterious Bill Rundle.

Rundle eventually invited his aged and disabled mother to live with him and his wife in Las Vegas. Five short months later, his mother disappeared and has never been located. However, Rundle and his wife continued to collect her social security checks for another 2 years. Even more astounding, Rundle and his wife burned through $300,000 of his mother's savings in the same amount of time. Although Rundle was never indicted for the murder of his mother, the evidence appears overwhelmingly clear that he is responsible for her death. And, however loving and caring Shirley appeared to everyone who knew her, she too participated in the deception that Rundle's disabled and elderly mother was traveling in Austria with a male nurse. By the time things began to crumble in around the Rundles, they were hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.

In perhaps the most shocking and misunderstood event in Bill Rundle's life, he beat his wife, Shirley, to death with a baseball bat. Not just any bat, mind you, but the baseball bat that had belonged to his beloved dead son, Richie. This murder seems extraordinarily cruel in that of all possible murder weapons availabe in the home, Rundle chose to crush his wife's skull with the baseball bat of the young boy who, Rundle maintains even now, Shirley loved as her own son. Then, in a pattern all too familiar, Rundle disappeared. He later disposed of his wife's body along the side of a desolate, mountain highway.

Given how adept Rundle was at forging new identities for himself and vanishing when life became too boring or difficult, in one of the many contradictions that punctuated Rundle's life, he travled from state to state using his own name and his own credit cards. Perhaps Rundle knew the game was up before it even began.

Perhaps somewhat less compelling (just a little) than Glenn Puit's first True Crime story, WITCH, this story of a man who was once named Las Vegas' Father of the Year is an interesting and entertaining foray into the secrets hidden by a seemingly normal man. Never boring, well-written, and easy to read, True Crime readers will not be disappointed.

The story of a man who's declared Father of the Year and then ends up on trial for the murder of his wife is all sorts of ironic until one pauses to consider that it was Father and not Husband of the Year. Undoubtedly that twist of irony is what drew Glenn Puit to the story of all around rotten human being Bill Rundle. Once again true crime fans are presented with evidence that being an SOB doesn't automatically make one's story interesting.

Rundle specializes in small scale crime, lies and romantic destruction until working his way up to the murders of his mother and wife. Along the way he has a son, Richie, that he genuinely seems to have loved. Then in a twist straight out of South Park, Richie is run over by a drunken cocktail waitress as he pushes his friend out of harm's way. Vegas being Vegas, they name a school after the child.

This is a curiously pedestrian book. Puit is strongest when he's detailing Rundle's background. The chapters dealing with the investigation are, I kid you not, taken from a Dateline NBC episode which left me wondering why I was reading this when I could just catch a rerun on Discovery ID. The last 50 pages are pure filler. Most of the time Puit is dispassionate to the point of bland, except when he's writing about Richie Rundle ("an angel", "a gift from God", "a miracle") and then I wanted to turn a fire hose on him.

All in all, middle grade true crime. Recommended only for those very interest in the case or the commuting patterns of cocktail waitresses.

Hi everyone,
Glenn Puit here. I really hope you enjoy Father of the Year. It's a great book, and if you ever have any thoughts, questions or follow up inquiries on this or any of my other books, you can email me directly at glenn@mlui.org. I also maintain a myspace page at http://www.myspace.com/kingoftruecrime. Finally, look for my Nov. 3 release, In Her Prime.
Take care, and if you like this book, please tell your friends and spread the word!
Glenn

I am an avid true crime reader. This story was very captivating and really kept my interest. It is shocking to see what kind of man can lurk behind a seemingly docile and relaxed persona. I recommend this for any true crime reader who likes to delve into the mind and actions of a sociopathic personality.

Glenn investigates and leaves his mark like a cat on the hunt. This is a great book by a superb writer. I'm a journalist, and I worked with him in Florence, S.C., a.k.a. Crack City. He respects the reader. No fact is left unturned. His detective skills turn cops into human beings. He saves surprises for the readers, and he has a POV that is skillful, remarkable, honed from years of journalism experience. I can't wait for him to make the bestseller list, have a movie made and let the world know how good he really is. Happy Father's Day!
http://www.timbullard.com

This is a very very well written story by Glenn Puit. Sorry Ann Rule, but your books never brought me to tears, as this one did. Very very sad and tragic story. This book should be at the top of the list.

This level of detail would be interesting for a more unusual character. The central figure here was a fairly boring, egocentric, liar who did a bad thing. unfortunately, that figure is fairly simple and their was no need to belabor the significance of his personality.

I disagree with some of the other reviewers in that I see Bill Rundle as a fascinating personality and his story as exceedingly unusual. All the lies, deceptions, and acts of awfulness from this seemingly ordinary man create a portrait that is at once breath-taking, and at last horrifying. This is an amazing description of a true sociopath.