Every Breath You Take: A True Story of Obsession, Revenge, and Murder

AMERICA'S #1 TRUE-CRIME WRITER FULFILLS A MURDER VICTIM'S DESPERATE PLEA — WITH THIS SHATTERING NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

"If anything ever happens to me...

find Ann Rule and ask her to write my story."

In perhaps the first true-crime book written at the victim's request, Ann Rule untangles a web of lies and brutality that culminated in the murder of Sheila Blackthorne Bellush — a woman Rule never met, but whose shocking story she now chronicles with compassion, exacting detail, and unvarnished candor. Although happily ensconced in a loving second marriage, and a new family of quadruplets, Sheila never truly escaped the vicious enslavement of her ex-husband, multi-millionaire Allen Blackthorne, a handsome charmer — and a violent, controlling sociopath who subjected Sheila to unthinkable abuse in their marriage, and terrorized her for a decade after their divorce. When Sheila was slain in her home, in the presence of her four toddlers, authorities raced to link the crime to Blackthorne, the man who vowed to monitor Sheila's every move in his obsessive quest for power and revenge.

"If anything ever happens to me. . .
find Ann Rule and ask her to write my story."

In perhaps the first true-crime book written at the victim's request, Ann Rule untangles a web of lies and brutality that culminated in the murder of Sheila Blackthorne Bellush -- a woman Rule never met, but whose shocking story she now chronicles with compassion, exacting detail, and unvarnished candor. Although happily ensconced in a loving second marriage, and a new family of quadruplets, Sheila never truly escaped the vicious enslavement of her ex-husband, multi-millionaire Allen Blackthorne, a handsome charmer -- and a violent, controlling sociopath who subjected Sheila to unthinkable abuse in their marriage, and terrorized her for a decade after their divorce. When Sheila was slain in her home, in the presence of her four toddlers, authorities raced to link the crime to Blackthorne, the man who vowed to monitor Sheila's every move in his obsessive quest for power and revenge.

Maureen Corrigan

As only the most adept crime stories do, Every Breath You Take manages to absolve its readers from the guilt of reading about such gruesomeness by engaging us in higher-minded, rubber-gloved investigations into the fault lines lurking in the human psyche and the American landscape. Rule digs up details about Allen Blackthorne's disturbing childhood and early adult life that form a case study of the classic American con man crossed with the more exotic strains of the sociopath. It is an affecting, tense and smart true-crime story. Washington Post Book World

With a string of bestselling true crime books that are considered to be required reading in criminology classrooms across the country, Ann Rule has built a reputation on delivering tales more terrifying than fiction.