Small Sacrifices: A True Story of Passion and Murder » (Reissue)

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.

Ann Rule's shocking and powerful account of the destructive forces that drove Diane Downs, a beautiful young mother, to shoot her three young children in cold blood.

"Vivid....Extraordinary...a page-turner."--New York Times Book Review

"Superb...[a] riveting detective story."--Indianapolis Star

"A harrowing pathological portrait....A work of resonance and revelation with breath-stopping tension to the end." --Kirkus Reviews

"Fascinating...grisly...un-putdownable." --New York Daily News

"Excellent....One of the most detailed studies of a sociopath to dignify the true-crime circuit." --The San Francisco Chronicle

"A raw docudrama of almost unbelievable intensity." --Booklist

* Also by Ann Rule (in Signet's newly repackaged editions): The Stranger Beside Me (4/99), The I-5 Killer (6/99), The Want-Ad Killer (8/99), The Lust Killer (10/99)

Publishers Weekly

This searching analysis of the shooting of three children in Oregon by their mother devolves into a study of personality. In May of 1983, Diane Downs drove to a Williamette Valley hospital emergency room with her children, all gravely wounded; one did not survive the first hour, and the other two were disabled for life. Downs initially told of a ``bushy-haired stranger'' who had committed the crime, but frequently changed her story. Under police questioning she recalled her childhood with a cold, domineering father who abused her sexually, her weak mother, a rape by one of her bosses, her failed marriage and many men with whom she had sex. One of these men, whom she claimed to love, did not want children, and that may have prompted the crime, speculates the author. The greatest strength of this book is the exploration by ex-policewoman Rule (The Stranger Beside Me of the aberrant personality of Downs, who is now imprisoned and not eligible for parole until 2009. (May 27)