The Want-Ad Killer
by Ann Rule
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Description
After his first grisly crime, Harvey Louis Carignan beat a death sentence and continued to manipulate, rape, and bludgeon women to death-using want ads to lure his young female victims. And time after time, justice was thwarted by a killer whose twisted legal genius was matched only by his sick savagery. Here, complete with the testimony of women who suffered his unspeakable sexual abuses and barely escaped with their lives, and of the police who at last put him behind bars, is one of the show more most shattering and thought-provoking true-crime stories of our time. show lessTags
Recommendations
Member Reviews
An interesting read. The story is well-balanced with personal facts about the killer and the victims and makes the problems with the justice system clear without being preachy.
Overall not as good as some of Ann Rule's books but the first half or three quarters were great, and the narrator was great throughout (audiobook). The last few chapters on "was he or wasn't he" insane got a little overbearing, and could have been summed up a little quicker instead of questioning each little thing that the killer said, but as an expose I guess all that questioning of each sentence was needed. It just didn't translate into a great audiobook. Still, the author is great at delivering true crime books and 3/4 of the book was superb. Overall, recommend for true crime lovers.
Good work for a book published in 1983. There was, at the time, a propensity for authors to embellish situations where there is no concrete evidence. Such as, putting words in the mouth of a deceased person to make the story flow better. But Ann was one of the better true crime authors at the time. Dude is 93 & still in prison.
More or less tells the story of Harvey Louis Carignan, a serial killer who escaped the death penalty because of the use of improper procedures. After that episode, when he was in his early 20s, Carignan went on to kill several other women, mostly by bludgeoning with a hammer.
Rule spends a fair amount of the book on one of Carignan's victims, a young woman who answered a want-ad. At the time, Carignan owned a gas station and employed several young women. It was easy for him to offer these women rides and later, to kill some of them. Whether he met all or most of them through his want-ads was never clear to me.
There is a fair amount of background on the killer, about his childhood, which appears to have led to his hatred of all women.
It's show more a good book for airplane rides. show less
Rule spends a fair amount of the book on one of Carignan's victims, a young woman who answered a want-ad. At the time, Carignan owned a gas station and employed several young women. It was easy for him to offer these women rides and later, to kill some of them. Whether he met all or most of them through his want-ads was never clear to me.
There is a fair amount of background on the killer, about his childhood, which appears to have led to his hatred of all women.
It's show more a good book for airplane rides. show less
It starts with the heartbreaking murder of Kathy Sue Miller, then follows the police investigation as her killer commits more crimes, until his arrest and conviction. Written in a straightforward, unflinching style, Rule lets the horror of the crimes speak for itself. Very readable and gripping.
Really interesting and, well, disturbing.
So...only one was connected to Want-Ads, not really a solid pattern...
So...only one was connected to Want-Ads, not really a solid pattern...
I usually love any book by Ann Rule, this one not so much. It was just a plain true story. Nothing like any of her other books.
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Author Information
Ann Rule was born on October 22, 1931 in Lowell, Michigan. She received a bachelor's degree from the University of Washington in creative writing, with minors in psychology, criminology and penology. She began writing for magazines including True Detective, Master Detective, Inside Detective, Front Page Detective, and Office Detective in 1969. show more During her lifetime, she wrote more than 30 books including The Stranger Beside Me; Green River, Running Red; Practice to Deceive; Ann Rule's Crime Files series, and Lying in Wait. She died on July 26, 2015 at the age of 83. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- The Want-Ad Killer
- Original publication date
- 1983
- People/Characters
- Harvey Louis Carignan; Kathy Sue Miller
- Important places
- Alaska, USA; Washington, USA; Minnesota, USA
- Dedication
- This book is dedicated to the Families and Friends of Missing Persons and Violent Crime Victims, Seattle, Washington - with the author's deepest respect for those who have coped with disaster and changed it into hope. And to... (show all) Gwen Burton, who had the courage to testify in open court against Harvey Louis Carignan. Without Gwen's testimony, there might have been no convictions.
- First words
- Prologue: Mary Miller had a terrible nightmare in the late summer of 1957, a dream so real that she woke terror in the humid heat of that New York City August night, a dream so full of the portent of evil yet to come that it... (show all) clung tenaciously to the cobwebby places of the mind where conscious thought rarely surfaces.
Harvey Louis Carignan's birthday was in May - just as Kathy Miller's was, possibly the only thing they shared in common. - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)"H" for "Harv-the-Hammer."
Classifications
- Genres
- General Nonfiction, Nonfiction, Politics and Government
- DDC/MDS
- 364.1523 — Society, Government, and Culture Social problems and social services Crime Criminal offenses Offenses against the person Homicide Murder
- LCC
- HV6529 — Social sciences Social pathology. Social and public welfare. Criminology Social pathology. Social and public welfare. Criminology Crimes and offenses
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 428
- Popularity
- 71,725
- Reviews
- 11
- Rating
- (3.66)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 10
- ASINs
- 7
