August 2024 Top Novel: “The Stranger Beside Me” by Ann Rule
I’ve read my fair share of true crime books, some sensationalized and some too heavy-handed, but The Stranger Beside Me stands in a league of its own. It’s not just because it tells the story of Ted Bundy, one of the most notorious serial killers in American history, but because of who’s telling it—Ann Rule, a woman who actually knew him.
Before Ted Bundy became a household name, he was just Ted, charming, polite, and seemingly ordinary. Ann Rule met him while working at a suicide crisis hotline in Seattle. They shared shifts, took coffee breaks, and confided in one another. The unsettling twist is that all the while, Ted was living a double life, committing brutal murders that would eventually haunt the nation.
What makes this book so compelling, and honestly why it became my top read for August, is Rule’s unique position. She wasn’t just reporting on the case. She was living it. She writes with the conflicted heart of someone trying to reconcile the person she knew with the monster he truly was. That’s what lingers long after the last page—the uncomfortable realization that evil doesn’t always wear a mask. Sometimes, it looks like your coworker, your friend, the guy who offers to walk you to your car.
What really hit me, though, was how relatable Rule’s voice felt. She doesn’t play up the drama. She doesn’t try to make herself the hero of the story. Instead, she takes readers along as she grapples with disbelief, guilt, and grief. Her writing feels like sitting down with someone who’s processing something they still can’t quite believe, and it makes the horror of it all even more chilling.
There’s a strange comfort in reading true crime like this, maybe because it forces us to confront our own blind spots. We like to think we’d see the signs, that we’d know if someone close to us was hiding something so dark. But Rule’s experience proves it’s not that simple.
The Stranger Beside Me is more than just a true crime novel. It’s a psychological exploration of trust, denial, and the human capacity for evil. Yet, it’s never hopeless. Rule’s compassion, her search for understanding, and her unflinching honesty turn this into a story that’s as human as it is horrifying.
It’s a book that stayed with me long after I put it down and one I’ll be recommending to anyone who thinks they know what a monster looks like.