On a sunny morning in October 2000, Chris Northon lay dead in a sleeping bag at a campsite beside a pristine river, while his wife drove four hours to a friend's house, sobbing inconsolably. She appeared to have been beaten, and had a black eye and bruises on her knee. Was Chris's death a tragic accident or a deliberate homicide? Was Liysa involved? Questions arose that made Oregon State detectives suspicious, yet her family and friends stood staunchly by her, incredulous that anybody would ask such questions.
Former Seattle police officer and crime author Rule (Small Sacrifices; Dead by Sunset, etc.) knows a good drama when she finds one: it involves love, betrayal, greed and violence. In the story of Liysa Northon, a woman who murdered her third husband, Chris Northon, in order to collect his insurance money, Rule has found a real-life soap opera. In the fall of 2000, Liysa convinced Chris to go on a camping trip with her and their small son in the remote forests of Oregon. But the idyllic vacation didn't last long; Liysa would later admit to ending her husband's life by shooting him in the head in an act of "self-defense." From where she sits today (in an Oregon state prison), she still professes to have shot Chris only in innocence and fear-emotions she said were caused by her years as a victim of domestic violence. But according to her husband's parents and other sources, Liysa is a manipulative sociopath who spent years crafting a public façade of abuse persuasive enough to justify the cold-blooded murder of her husband. Rule has done an impressive amount of research to reconstruct the history of Liysa's crime and the stories of the main people involved, interviewing dozens of police officers, investigators and private citizens across the country. And if the author's prose is somewhat flat, the fascinating and perplexing drama should be more than enough to keep most readers turning pages. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
I am an author of true-crime books, and I'm now working on my 25th and 26th: NO REGRETS and TOO LATE TO SAY GOODBYE. I have lived in the Seattle Area for many years. Before that, I grew up in Michigan and Pennsylvania, and lived in Texas, Oregon, and near Niagara Falls, N.Y. I always wanted to be a police officer--because my grandfather was a sheriff in Michigan. I joined the Seattle Police Department when I was 21, worked a year and a half, but then I couldn't pass the eye test. After five years of rejection slips, I finally sold my first article for $35! Soon, I found my niche when I began writing for the fact-detective magazines like TRUE DETECTIVE in 1970, and I wrote more than a thousand homicide cases, and went to hundreds of trials. My first book, THE STRANGER BESIDE ME, was about Ted Bundy, but, amazingly, I had the book contract to write about an unknown killer six months before Bundy was identified as the "Ted Killer." And I had known him all along, and didn't realize it; he was my partner in the all-night shift at Seattle's Crisis Clinic! Oddly, I started out writing humor, but unless you are Erma Bombeck, Garrison Keillor, or Fanny Flagg or Dave Barry, it's hard to make a living. Now I write humor for fun and for my friends.
I graduated in Creative Writing from the U of Washington, with minors in criminology and psychology. I also have an AA degree in law enforcement, taking classes in crime scene investigation, arrest, search and seizure, crime scene photography and forensic science. I've lectured in seminars all across America to detectives, prosecutors, and even at the FBI Academy. My subjects have been serial murder, high profile offenders, and women who kill. I write two books every year--one hardcover single-case book, and one Ann Rule's True Crime Files original paperback. Although people tend to think I write only about the Northwest, I go wherever the cases are most interesting. I've written about murder cases in Florida, Georgia, New York, Kansas, Texas, Hawaii, and California, too.
I raised five children on my own--starting out with articles for baby care magazines, Sunday features, true confessions, and then "slicks" like Cosmopolitan, Ladies' Home Journal, Good Housekeeping, and Reader's Digest. Now, my children are grown.
I like to keep in very close touch with my readers, and I'm able to do that with a weblog and a guestbook on my website pages at www.annrules.com This also gives readers a chance to talk with each other, and its' a pretty lively spot--as I'm sure this page will be.
To choose a book subject, I weed through about 3,000 suggestions from readers. I'm looking for an "anti-hero" whose eventual arrest shocks those who knew him (or her): attractive, brilliant, charming, popular, wealthy, talented, and much admired in their communities--but really hiding behind masks.
I'm a reader myself, and I always have several books going at once--one upstairs, downstairs, near the bathtub, in my car, and beside my hammock (in the summer, of course!)
Thank you Ann for telling this tragic story, and bringing some kind of justice to our families.This was the hardest book I will ever read in my life time. I am Chris Northon's cousin and had known and loved him for 45 years.I lived in Bend,Oregon and taught swimmming to Liysa's oldest sweet boy along with his two other cousins. Chris also asked if I would be interested in cleaning his home when they went back and forth to Hawaii since it was such a filthy mess, I think he was really embarrassed. I personally read the emails that the FBI culled from Liysia's long lost (stolen-another lie) computer, which by the way is public knowledge to anyone from the court house. She writes Drowning is the best, but I need a backup and Daddy gave her a .38 revolver! Isn't that aiding and abetting? She should have been convicted 25 years to Life. The true facts are the facts and we don't get our beloved Chris back in 10 years when she gets out. Chris' little boy doesn't get his dad back. Our lives will never be the same, but our love for him forever.
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It's tough to choose the right amount of stars in a genre that includes "In Cold Blood," "The Executioner's Song" & other classics that really raise the bar. But Ann Rule's "Heart Full of Lies" is one of her best since "The Stranger Beside Me," which is saying a lot, considering "Stranger" is itself a (flawed) classic.
"Heart" starts slow and just builds & builds & builds until we realize Rule just has a great grip on who the main characters are & has developed them very well. We get a very good sense of both Chris Northon & his wife Liysa. There is also a surprising & satisfying lack of ambiguity at the end about what happened.
The portrait of Liysa is ultimately devastating & compelling. I'm still thinking about her a couple of days after finishing the book. When do dysfunctional people cross the line from being merely a strain on their friends to being dangerous? How many people fit the category of dysfuctional time bombs? And why is it that some are able to fix themselves before calamity happens & become decent human beings where others never do?
The portrait of Liysa is all the more compelling because I got the sense that it ran against what Rule expected to find & against her natural sympathies. She seems inclined to empathize with abused women--but an empathetic abused woman is not where Rule's research leads her.
I don't recall the word "sociopath" anywhere in the book. But it does appear in reviews here. I suppose that is what Liysa is--a female sociopath (which seems to be rarer than male). If that's the case, then she's best locked up for the rest of her life.
"Heart" has well-developed characters, a decent sense of place & good reasons for being written. This is not (unlike much true crime) mere rubbernecking. This is a thought-provoking contribution to the genre.
Ann Rule has been doing this for a long time, & she is a true crime standard-bearer.
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Another great read from Ann Rule. Is it a coincidence that the reviews from the people that knew Lisa state that this story is on the money and the only two that claim this to be full of lies both have the last name of DEWITT - one her father and the other her brother....... The only stable member of that family was her mother, Sharon, who is "accused" of beating Lisa throughout her life. Any half-intelligent person will come to the same conclusion - Lisa was/is a manipulative wanna be and sits where she belongs - in prison! Wayland, you were an accessory to murder and full of hot air - some things never change!
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First Sentence:
THE MOUNTAINS and high plains of extreme northeastern Oregon are so far from well-traveled freeways that even most Oregonians have never been to this wilderness area where the sky seems close enough to touch. Read the first pageKey Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
surf photographer, pool group
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Wallowa County, Chris Northon, Pat Montgomery, Walla Walla, Pat Birmingham, Dave Story, Dick Northon, Ellen Duveaux, Hawaiian Airlines, Lanipo Street, Nick Mattson, Dan Ousley, Steve Briggs, Liysa Northon, Lostine River, Joe Wilson, Dennis Dinsmore, Oregon State Police, Wayne Mackeson, Randy Ore, Dick Bobbitt, Kevin Larkin, Craig Elliot, Arne Arnesen, Jeanne Northon
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