True-crime author wows crowd, as her books wow loyal readersClatsop Count District Attorney Josh Marquis introduced her as “the leading true-crime writer in the world.”

After all, she has written books on Ted Bundy, Diane Downs and other notorious killers. But Ann Rule entertained the packed conference room at the Seafood Consumer Center with her killer wit.

Rule, who has published 21 books, with most on the New York Times Bestseller list, look over the crowd at Tuesday’s Columbia forum and said she knew everyone’s first question.

“If you like my books, you wonder if there is something wrong with you.” Pause. “And then you wonder if is there something wrong with the people sitting next to you.” The crowd responded with laughter.

Rule said most of her readers wouldn’t kill a fly – well, maybe a fly, but not a spider. Looking around the room, she said, “There might be some spider-killers here, but you don’t want to know who they are.” She had the audience of nearly 100 rolling with laughter.

Shaky startRule’s presentation featured a slide show, beginning with a series of cartoons drawn by one of her five children, daughter Leslie Rule. The first few images were of Ann Rule sitting at a typewriter wearing stylish, flared, pointy glasses from the 1960s, while the children rampaged all around her. “I could always write unless the kids were fighting on top of my typewriter,” she said.

True-crime writer Ann Rule entertains the crowd.

KIM ERSKINE-For The Daily Astorian

Rule’s career had a slow start with piles and piles of rejection letters which appeared on the screen in front of the audience. Along with the normal rejection slips from typical magazines such as Reader’s Digest, were some from Successful Farming, Your New Baby and Kiwanis Magazine. “I knew nothing about farming,” Rule admitted, adding “I’ve been on one once.”

Rule finally broke into writing with romance articles for magazines with a female victim and a menacing male and a gun or knife on the cover. The crowd favorite was “You Need a Stud, Not a Husband.”

Soon, Rule said, she was writing too much about sex and had to add violence. She said her son Mike told his teacher that his mother was into sex and violence.

She became the Northwest correspondent for five detective magazines and hoped to parlay her interest into a book.

Ted BundyWith a degree in creative writing from the University of Washington and an associate degree in police science, Rule though she could spot a criminal.

In 1971, Rule shared a night shift at a Seattle crisis hotline with Ted Bundy. They became friends.

Rule signed a contract to write about a series of mysterious murders in Washington, but when a suspect was named, she could hardly believe it was Ted Bundy. How could this charismatic charmer be a killer she wondered. Her book, “The Stranger Beside Me” chronicled Bundy’s murderous exploits in Washington, Colorado, Utah and Florida and zoomed to the NYT Bestseller list.

As Rule showed six wildly different photos of Bundy, she said killers change their looks because they can read people and “will be what they perceive we want.”

Even today, Rule says, she cannot reconcile the Ted Bundy she knew and the “monster” he became. She sees him as two people.

Now she cautions there is no way to recognize a killer.

Books, books and more booksRule is known for her gripping stories about betrayal obsession sociopathology, revenge and murder. She captivates readers not by gore and grizzly descriptions, but by intricately weaving a tale with three strands of storyline: the victims, the killer and the detectives and prosecutors.

Stories featuring charismatic, seductive and sometimes rich anti-heroes are what she looks for as her subject. She said some cases are too painful because she has to live with the characters for a year. Other subjects are too well known – such as Oregon City’s Ward Weaver.

Rule has written books about Thomas Capano, Randall Woodfield and David Brown who coerced his daughter into killing his wife, telling her “You don’t have to do it, but if you really love me, you will.”

Rule works from 10 a.m. to 7:30 at night, seven days a week. On her platter at the moment are “A Heart Full of Lies” about a United Airlines pilot who was shot by his wife in the Wallowa Mountains, a book on the alleged Green River killer Gary Ridgway and an anthology of her best shorter cases along with some new ones.

Through all these tales of murder, Rule has refined her writing, keeping a steady stream of readers flowing. Rule draws her readers in by showing how lives intersect.

In “Every Breath You Take,” Rule doesn’t describe the full murder scene until page 188, but readers know they won’t be disappointed.

The appeal to a wide audience is through her writing. In “Every Breath You Take,” about the murder of Sheila Bellush in Florida, Rule’s skill is evident: “But later on this November day, clouds moved in over Sarasota. They were a peculiar leaden gray-purple shading to black, full of unpredictable electrical impulses that made one’s hair stand on end. It was going to rain, but it wouldn’t be a soft rain; it would surely be rain that thudded against the earth with a vengeance, forcing trees and bushes to the ground with the sheer weight of water, pounding the grass flat.”

Now who can resist that?