Ann Rule: The stranger beside me; the shocking inside story of serial killer Ted Bundy

Most interesting due to the relationship between the two...and her realisation that she knew two different people who were nevertheless the same person.. She did take a long time to realise it though...perhaps understandably. A rather terrible position to be put in though. Difficult to imagine how it must have felt.

Tricky to keep track of the very large cast initially but clearly written.

Was one of the first True-Crime-style book have read but will need to read a number of other styles before return to this genre.

The previous comments were only about the original book which ended with the guilty verdict at the Florida trial. In 1986 after his execution once his many appeals had run out she wrote a conclusion...certainly I think something of a personal catharsis for her. Here she is far more painfully clear-eyed about her recognition of herself and her relationship with Bundy, coming to rhe conclusion that he was and could be not just two people...the killer and the nice young man but, in the latter 'pose' whatever sort of 'nice young man' the person speaking to him or interviewing him wanted him to be. The other related element to this would of course, be dependent on what Bundy wanted at that time and how he calculated he should be to that person to obtain what he wanted from them...and also proving, in his mind, how he was superior to them. This insistence on his superiority was centrally important I think.

This comes out in the interview he did with James Dobson (!!) who wanted to usebhim as a prop in his agenda to prove that pornography corruprs, can cause serial killers and Bundy is an example. Bundy duly performed.

The other interesting interviews were those with Keppel where he confessed to many more murders. Must check which of the tapes made were the basis of the Netflix documentary.

Having now read these last sections feel that these are vital in terms of following the author's journey of understanding of what she experienced.