Lynn Spencer's Reviews > Bitter Harvest

I'd heard good things about Ann Rule, but I have to admit that this one didn't impress me much. I had only vague knowledge of the Debora Green case at issue before I read the book, but one of the stronger points of the story was how the author managed to portray the shattering, heartbreaking quality of what happened. Two of Debora Green's three children perished in a fire in the 1990s, and Green was ultimately convicted of arson and murder.

The portrayal of Green's substance abuse and mental health issues added an air of tragedy to the already sad tale. However, the author seemed to have a very strong bias and it made for unsatisfying reading. Her style was heavy-handed and from the early chapters, it became obvious that in Rule's mind, Debora was just evil while her husband(Dr. Farrar) was portrayed as an innocent victim, with his various shortcomings((view spoiler)[including an adulterous relationship with a woman whose husband committed suicide under odd circumstances not long before the deadly fire in question (hide spoiler)]) minimized. Rule makes frequent reference to how handsome and wonderful Farrar supposedly was(references not borne out by the photos of Farrar contained in the book), and this did more to make the author look personally biased than it did to help bring the story to life. This story involves the complete breakdown of a marriage and family, and the layers and subtleties of the situation just get glossed over and swept aside in this telling.