There was only one way to please her father: Murder his wife....
David Brown was the consummate entrepreneur: a computer wizard and millionaire by age thirty-two. When his beautiful young wife was shot to death as she slept, Brown's fourteen-year-old daughter, Cinnamon, confessed to killing her stepmother. The California courts sentenced her harshly: twenty-four years to life. But in the wake of Cinnamon's murder conviction, thanks in part to two determined lawmen, the twisted private world of David Brown himself unfolded with astonishing clarity -- revealing a trail of perverse love, twisted secrets, and evil mind games. A complex and often dangerous investigation suggested a horrifying scenario: Was the seemingly bland David Brown really a stone-cold killer who convinced his own daughter to prove her love by killing for him? A man who turned young women into his own personal slaves, who collected nearly $1 million in insurance money, and married his dead wife's teenage sister, David Brown was a sociopath who would stop at nothing...a deadly charmer who almost got away with everything.
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Rule expertly portrays a millionaire computer genius who masterminded the murder of his wife by his 14-year-old daughter, and later, from his prison cell, unsuccessfully plotted three more killings. More than 100,000 hardcovers were sold of this title, which was a Literary Guild alternate in cloth. Photos. Author tour. Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Best-selling true crime author Rule ( Small Sacrifices , NAL, 1987) tells the story of computer businessman David Brown, a "complete sociopath" who manipulated his 14-year-old daughter, Cinnamon, into murdering his 23-year-old wife in Orange County, California in 1985. Brown collected some $800,000 in insurance money and married his wife's 17-year-old sister while Cinnamon went to the reformatory. Despite her "confession," prosecuting investigator Jay Newell felt uneasy about Cinnamon's alleged vague and trivial motives. He continued to pursue the case and in 1990 Brown was convicted of masterminding his wife's murder. This lengthy account is generally engrossing, and it is recommended for public libraries. - Gregor A. Preston, Univ. of California Lib., Davis Copyright 1991 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!)
This review is from: If You Really Loved Me (Mass Market Paperback)
After seeing several "true crime" shows on the Brown Case I ordered Ann's book. I had been a fan of hers for several years but hadn't read this story yet. She brings the people involved in this case to life.
What David Brown did to his family is unthinkable. He molested his wife's sister, he manipulated his 14 year old daughter into killing his wife and then sat back and enjoyed his freedom and the insurance money from the death of his wife.
While he lounged in a nearly 1/2 a million dollar home, now married to his late wife's sister, his daughter sat in the Ventura School (a youth prison). If not for three men, who went above and beyond the call of duty, David Brown would never have been convicted. Kudos to Jay Newell, Jeoff Robinson and Fred McLean. And to Cinnamon Brown for breaking the silence.
Ann Rule weaves a story so incredible and so vivid you will not be able to put the book down till you're done!
Bravo, Ann, on another truly exceptional book.
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This review is from: If You Really Loved Me (Mass Market Paperback)
Ann Rule,you are the best true crime writer around!This book has got to be my alltime favourite (english spelling,sorry it's where I was born).I have read this book so many times and I am always really into it.It has been read by a lot of my friends too and they love it.Lots of twists and plots,tons to keep the reader interested!If you only read one book in your life,make sure it's this one.There is also a great movie on this story too,although the book is much better.
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This review is from: If You Really Loved Me (Mass Market Paperback)
I have just finished this book; the first I've read by Ann Rule, and have been engrossed from the first page. As soon as I finished it, I scanned the Internet to find out what had happened to the main characters; especially Cinnamon Brown, the poor young 14 year old girl that was locked up for the crime that her father brainwashed her to do. I was so pleased to discover that she has been released from prison and is happily married with a kid. I hope and pray she can put what her father did to her behind her, and get on with having a happy normal life. If you like a book with real people, real situations, and real emotions, get this book. You won't regret it.
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