FromAnn Rule, “America’s best true-crime writer” (Kirkus Reviews), her unforgettable classic account of the horrifying murders in the Pacific Northwest and her shock when she discovered her friend —Ted Bundy— was not only a suspect but also one of the most prolific serial killers in American history.Meeting in 1971 at a Seattle crisis clinic,Ann RuleandTed Bundydeveloped a friendship and correspondence that would span the rest of his life. Rule had no idea that when they went their separate ways, their paths would cross again under shocking circumstances.The Stranger Beside Meis Rule’s compelling firsthand account of not just her relationship with Bundy, but also his life — from his complicated childhood to the media circus of his trials. Astonishing in its intimacy and with Rule’s clear-eyed prose, you can’t help but share in her growing horror at discovering that her friend was one of the most notorious American serial killers.An unforgettable and haunting work of research, journalism and personal memories,The Stranger Beside Meis “as dramatic and chilling as a bedroom window shattering at midnight” (The New York Times)."Readers of true crime seek the chill of a secondhand encounter with evil, and few books deliver on this promise like Ann Rule’s “The Stranger Beside Me,” perhaps the most unnerving true-crime book ever published... A close read of [the book] however, reveals a queasy subplot: When did Rule know that Bundy was guilty? ...The passages of Rule’s book in which she is not recounting meetings with Bundy, where she is narrating the crimes themselves, are suspenseful, chilling. They are built entirely out of case files but are fully imagined. They are what the book Rule was contracted to write would have been had she never known Bundy.... [but] this hypothetical book, a well-crafted but ultimately generic work, would never have lasted the way that “The Stranger Beside Me“ h