The Stranger Beside Me

Archival Summary & Scope

True-crime author Ann Rule’s *The Stranger Beside Me*, a seminal and bestselling classic, returns in a new edition featuring a foreword by Georgia Hardstark. In 1971, Rule befriended a charismatic coworker, Ted Bundy, at a Seattle crisis clinic. Years later, as Rule tracked a brutal mass murderer terrorizing the region, a horrifying realization dawned: the killer sought by police was her trusted friend. This intimate account chronicles Rule's chilling discovery of Bundy's magnetic deception, double life, and his confession to at least thirty-six murders. Hailed by *The New Yorker* as "perhaps the most unnerving true-crime book ever published," *The Stranger Beside Me* remains a gripping and unforgettable true-crime benchmark over forty years after its initial publication.