No Regrets [Kindle Edition]

Ann Rule (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Prolific and talented true crime author Rule proves her warranted reputation as one of the genre's leading lights with the 11th entry in her Crime Files series. Two-thirds of the book is devoted to one case, the disappearance of an elderly sea captain from his quiet community of Lopez Island in Washington State. As with many of the stories recounted in previous volumes, Rule succeeds in pulling the reader into a mystery that was largely of local concern. With a novelist's skill, she brings to life the missing Norwegian mariner, Rolf Neslund, and his difficult marriage to Ruth Myers, who became the prime suspect after he vanished without a trace. Handicapped by the absence of a corpse, the local authorities, inexperienced in homicide inquiries, doggedly persisted over years until justice was won. The richness of this case does have the unintended effect of rendering the shorter sketches that follow—including the tale of a woman beaten into a coma, a murder victim found months after the fact and a young bank robber—less compelling, but few genre fans will complain; the Neslund case speaks for itself, as does Rule's skill as a storyteller. (Nov.)
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Product Description

A ship's pilot legendary for guiding mammoth freighters through the narrows of Puget Sound, Rolf Neslund was a proud Norwegian, a ladies' man, and a beloved resident of Washington State's idyllic Lopez Island. Virtually indestructible even into his golden years, he made electrifying headlines more than once: after a ship he was helming crashed into the soaring West Seattle Bridge, causing millions in damages; and following his inexplicable disappearance at age 80. Was he a suicide, a man broken by one costly misstep? Had he run off with a lifelong love? Or did a trail of gruesome evidence lead to the home Rolf shared with his wife, Ruth? On an island where everyone thought they knew their neighbors, the veneer of the Neslunds' marriage masked a convoluted case that took many years to solve. And, indeed, some still believe that the old sea captain will come home one day. "The Sea Captain" is a classic tale as blood chilling as murder itself. Along with six other equally riveting, detailed accounts of destruction and murder committed without conscience or regret, Ann Rule takes readers into frightening places they never could have imagined in No Regrets.

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Product Details

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 2705 KB
• Print Length: 436 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0743448758
• Publisher: Pocket Books (October 31, 2006)
• Sold by: Simon and Schuster Digital Sales Inc
• Language: English
• ASIN: B000MGAU9S
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (56 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #21,857 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
  • #93 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > True Accounts > Murder & Mayhem

More About the Author

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!)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars No Regrets About This One!, January 11, 2007

By 

Lynne So. Calif. "Lynne" (Southern California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: No Regrets (Ann Rule's Crime Files, Vol. 11) (Mass Market Paperback)

This book consists of a lengthy main story that is a fascinating tale about the murder of a ship's pilot by his wife. It is followed by multiple separate but equally compelling stories that while tragic, are poignant and quite interesting.
Ann Rule continues to unfold stories with great attention to the backgrounds of the people in her novels and the locations relevant to their lives. She has a clear interest in why people do what they do and obvious respect for the justice system and crime victims. Her "way with a word" just gets better with time. This is a must have book for anyone that enjoys true crime stories.

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Some Interesting Stories!, November 26, 2006

By 

Sylviastel - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: No Regrets (Ann Rule's Crime Files, Vol. 11) (Mass Market Paperback)

I am big Ann Rule fan. I think I read about every one of her books possible. She is such a captivating author that if she wrotes novels, she would win the Nobel Prize for Literature. Her books always romanticize the setting whether it's Lopez Island, Seattle, Portland, and usually in the Pacific Northwest that is also where she calls home. She uses her intelligence and wit to write stories about common, ordinary people sometimes extraordinary, deranged, and dangerous like Rolf and Rose Neslund in the Sea Captain about a Norwegian American sea captain who lives on Lopez Island. Him and his wife have one of the most dysfunctional relationships ever just to clue you in but yet it's ROlf we have to feel sorry for because he is the victim of Rose's anger and hatred and jealousy over his money which she controls. There are other stories like a Very Bad Christmas about a father/husband who kills his wife and two young children. A story that never made national headlines. Or the two men who raped and kidnapped Kari Lindholm who survived the ordeal. Or the man who shot and killed a bank officer during a botched robbery. These stories happen a lot more than we expect but Ann puts perspective on the survivors, the victims, and even the criminals. We know that Ann does not treat the criminals lightly at all. She criticizes their crimes very well but she also makes the attempt to understand them and that's what make her a very special true crime author.

18 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not her best, but so what?, December 25, 2006

By 

Stewart Kiritz "bookish" (CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: No Regrets (Ann Rule's Crime Files, Vol. 11) (Mass Market Paperback)

I love Ann Rule's books and will read anything she writes. I am sure she would agree that No Regrets is not her best work. But considering her productivity level (she says she write two books a year) I don't know that anyone could produce masterpieces like Small Sacrifices, The Stranger Beside Me, Bitter Harvest each time.

If you have never read one of Ann Rule's books, start with one of the above full-length works. Then you will know why we devotees keep reading.