Last Dance, Last Chance, Ann Rule
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Last Dance, Last Chance
And Other True Cases

Author: Ann Rule

Narrator: Laural Merlington

Abridged: 14 hr 6 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 07/23/2013


Synopsis

"America's best true-crime writer" (Kirkus Reviews), Ann Rule presents her 8th collection of crime stories drawn from her private files—and featuring the riveting case of a fraudulent doctor whose lifelong deceptions had deadly consequences.Dr. Anthony Pignataro was a cosmetic surgeon and a famed medical researcher whose flashy red Lamborghini and flamboyant lifestyle in western New York State suggested a highly successful career. But appearances, as this shocking insider account of Pignataro's tailspin from physician to prisoner proves, can be deceiving—and, for the doctor's wife, very nearly deadly. No one was safe if they got in his way. With scalpel, drugs, and arsenic, he betrayed every oath a physician makes—until his own schemes backfired. Now, the motivations of the classic sociopath are plumbed with chilling accuracy by Ann Rule. Along with other shocking true cases, this worldwide headline-making case will have you listening in disbelief that a trusted medical professional could sink to the depths of greed, manipulation, and self-aggrandizement where even slow, deliberate murder is not seen for what it truly is: pure evil.

Author Bio

Ann Rae Stackhouse was born in Lowell, MI in 1931. Her mother taught school, specializing in developmentally disabled children, and her father was a coach. Ann was in law enforcement in her young adult years, as was many in her family. She received various degrees from different colleges and universities, including studying creative writing, criminology, and psychology at University of Washington.

Ann's marriage, and eventual divorce changed her last name to Rule, which she keeps as her author name. Her extensive education and experience as a police woman gave her the perfect credentials to become regarded by many as the foremost true crime writer in America, setting the standards for the genre. For example, while she was volunteering at a suicide hotline center in Seattle in 1971, she met a work study student by the name of Ted Bundy, not realizing until a few years later that it was the same Bundy responsible for a series of murders. To her, he was kind, solicitous, and empathetic. She wrote her first book about him, considered one of the definitive biographies of Bundy.......The Stranger Beside Me (written under her own name, rather than the previously used pen name).

Rule has been a full-time crime writer since 1969, and has published 33 books and 1400 articles, mostly on criminal cases.

Today, she teaches seminars to law enforcement groups, a certified instructor in many subjects such as: Serial Murder, Sadistic Sociopaths, Women Who Kill, and High Profile Offenders. She has consulted with the FBI at their headquarters in Quantico, VA tracking a system to help identify and trap serial killers. She testimonies twice before the Senate Judiciary Sub-committee on victim's rights and the danger of serial killers.

Simon and Schuster currently have Rule under contract. Eight of her books have been made into TV movies, and more are in the works. Ann is in active support groups for victims of violent crimes and their families, in programs to help battered and abused women, and support group.

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