Green River, Running Red: The Real Story of the Green River Killer--America's Deadliest Serial Murderer

by Ann Rule

2005

Status

Checked out

Publication

Pocket Star (2005), Edition: Reprint, 704 pages

Description

Traces the serial murders of the Green River Killer, profiling Gary Ridgway as a happily married man who worked for the same company for thirty years, and discusses the DNA breakthroughs that established his link to the killings.

User reviews

LibraryThing member mrtall
Ann Rule’s Green River, Running Red is a quasi-insider’s take on the most prolific serial killer in US history, the so-called Green River Killer.

A long-standing true-crime writer who got her start working next to Ted Bundy, Rule was perfectly placed to observe and write up the GRK case. He
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operated right in her home town, i.e. the south suburbs of Seattle, and she had ongoing access to police and media contacts as the investigation exploded in the early and mid-80s, then dragged on for almost 20 more years to its rather pathetic climax.

The result is a good crime read, but not a great one. In spite of the GRK’s outrageous kill total, he turned out to be an extraordinarily dull character, unlike the racy image of serial killers based on Bundy and the Hannibal Lecter stories.

Rule does her best to bring some drama to the story, but it’s hard at times to keep the narrative momentum, meaning the book drags at points.

One point in Rule’s favor is her compassion for the victims of her subject. Yes, reading about serial killers certainly is good for a vicarious thrill, but Rule doesn’t let you forget the enormity of what they do, the gross, brutal pain they inflict on their victims and their families. Rule skirts the hagiographic at times here, as she portrays nearly every victim of the GRK (they were predominantly prostitutes) as pretty, vivacious, loving girls just gone a bit misguided. But I can’t blame her for that. Their crimes were nothing in comparison to the evil of their killer, and Rule is to be commended for reminding us readers of that single essential fact over and over again.
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LibraryThing member jphillips3334
What drives a person to kill, and then repeat it over and over again for decades? Rule delves into this them by examining the life of this killer. By examining everything about the killer's life, you get a better understand what lead him to kill all those women. She also discusses the victims, and
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tells their story also. A detailed look into one of America's deadliest serial killers.
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LibraryThing member whirled
When a serial killer is as prolific as Gary Ridgway, his victims tend to blur into one another, forming one tragic but anonymous mass. This is particularly true when the victims are prostitutes, women society finds it easy to ignore. In Green River, Running Red, Ann Rule fleshes out the victims'
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stories, which often include families trying desperately to save them from "the life", as prostitutes call their sad and dangerous work.

Rules also tries to lay bare the life and psyche of Ridgway himself, with limited success. The killer himself offers few clues, insisting he killed out of resentment for his former wives. His third bride, like many killer's wives before her, seems more disturbed by the destruction of her secure suburban existence than by her husband's crimes. Disturbingly, it seems that Ridgway's shapeless banality is exactly what allowed him to elude capture for so long.
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LibraryThing member Barb_H
Excellent true crime book. Eager to read more of her books. It's morbid and scary and twisted, but yet fascinating and I just can't seem to put them down.
LibraryThing member Marlene-NL
on Saturday, December 17, 2005


Wow. I am really shocked reading about this wanker.
Especially when you consider they could have caught him so much earlier.
There was 1 witness when he took off with Marie, a girl who was prostituting herself, her parents not knowing, with the help of her boyfriend. He
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saw her going in a car, and thought she looked scared when she was in the car so he followed them. The driver ( who later turned out to be Gary Ridgeway)managed to shook him off.
Not much later the boyfriend and Marie's family did a search and they found the car parked in a driveway of a house. The police asked the owner of the house if there was a girl there, he said no, of course, and that was the end of it. I wished they could have done more, I say could, cause I understand they can't just go in the house, but on the other side, it was during all the murders, so to bad it didn't ring a bell.


While reading this book I was also reading The search of the Green River Killer by Carlton Smith and The Riverman by Robert D. Keppler, one of the detectives on the case.

This gave me a good insight in what happened during all those decades.
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LibraryThing member coloradogirl14
In her book Green River, Running Red, renowned true crime author Ann Rule chronicles the murder of over fifty women in the Seattle area, as well as the police department’s agonizing search for their killer – a search that began in 1981 and ended 20 years later in 2001, with the arrest of Gary
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Ridgway.

Green River, Running Red is both a fascinating insight into a high-profile murder investigation, as well as a horrifying portrait of a real-life serial killer that goes beyond anything I’ve ever seen in the movies. In the last part of the book, Ann Rule also includes transcribed portions from Ridgway’s confession, when he explains why he killed all those women. It’s guaranteed to send chills down your spine.

I might even go so far as to say this was one of the most unsettling books I’ve ever read. The book contains photographs of many of the victims, as well as photos and mug shots of Ridgway himself, which made the story that much more realistic for me. As a true crime novel, this is one of the best, and I guarantee that if you read Green River, Running Red, you will never look at your friends and neighbors the same way again.
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LibraryThing member wktarin
Interesting and off-putting at the same time.
LibraryThing member jshillingford
Years ago, I read Small Sacrifices and was impressed with how well Rule clearly laid of the case, centered the story on the victims and investigators, and kept the timeline from becoming confusing. It was an engrossing read. I read a few true crime books in subsequent years, but only just now
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jumped back in to the genre. I happened to have this book on my shelf and decided to give it go. It’s her 23rd book, and I’ve not read those in between. So, I can only compare it to Small Sacrifices, and it comes up lacking.

The main problem with the book is the twenty years it took to catch the Green River Killer. The murders were first discovered in the early 1980’s and almost all of the book focuses on those years. Rule outlines several failed suspect investigations, burial sites discoveries and introduces investigators as they join and leave the task force. But there isn’t much “investigation” after 1990. So, that leaves almost the entire book to be filled with victims – 48 known.

Rule/the publisher opted to introduce each missing woman with a small photo of her (if available) before the entry about her disappearance and addition to the GRK list. This helps to keep them from just being anonymous murder victims, but only for so long. Despite a valiant effort by the author, and me as a reader, there are just so many that they begin to blur together: another young woman, living a hard life, snuffed out by a coldblooded killer. It took me much longer to read this book than usual, because it was heartbreaking, with little to break it up. There are passages describing the killer’s life during this period – kept to a minimum so as to reveal what his nature without glorifying him. There are also passages of biographical background on the key investigators. Yet, the big catch doesn’t take place until the very end. Readers will easily surmise that he would eventually be caught via DNA, once the technology became viable, so again, no real investigation there either - just a test and then bam! The fallout from his arrest, plea bargain, police interviews and revelations about what he did are interesting, but also disturbing.

Overall, I didn’t find this as compelling as prior true crime books (by Rule or others) because it felt more like relentless tragedy. But perhaps that was the point.
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LibraryThing member marshapetry
There is a reason Ann Rule is so famous - this book is just plain excellent. The author explains intricate crime clearly and relatively cleanly. I was hesitant to read this book because I thought I'd get weary of reading gory details but Ann Rule is able to include death descriptions that don't
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overly disgust.
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LibraryThing member LibraryCin
In the early 1980s, the Seattle area had a serial killer running around, mostly killing prostitutes. True crime author Ann Rule, by then having published her book on Ted Bundy, lived in the area, and followed very closely what was happening. The killer wasn’t caught for almost 20 years, but when
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DNA testing came available, he was not only caught, but he admitted to many more murders than they would have been able to link to him via DNA.

Unfortunately, I (once again) ended up with an abridged audio. I was only a kid in the early 80s, and not in the area, so it was more recently that I heard of the Green River killer. The book was interesting, but I would have liked to have listened to the entire book. It did seem to jump abruptly from talking about the victims to following the killer’s life. Not sure if the book actually felt that way or if it felt such because it was abridged.
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Awards

Edgar Award (Nominee — Fact Crime — 2005)

Language

Original language

English

Original publication date

2004-09-28

Physical description

704 p.; 4.13 inches

ISBN

0743460502 / 9780743460507

Barcode

1600619

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