Book Review
Too Late to Say Goodbye By ANN RULE
Reviewed by C. CAROL CARTLEDGE
There is great evil everywhere, but no one could have ever thought it would be directed toward someone as beautiful, sweet, and charming as Dolly Hearn of Washington. The evil was manifested in the form of fellow dental student Barton Corbin, and all his treachery is there for us to discover in the newest book by author Ann Rule in Too Late to Say Goodbye, a true story of murder and betrayal now on sale at the Mary Willis Library.

Ann Rule writes with impeccable detail and penetrating insight as she describes the lives and deaths of two unsuspecting young women, first Corbin's girlfriend and 14 years later his wife. We're taken through a romance between Dolly and Bart and through his obsession with her that forced Dolly to try to walk away as he stalked her, stole and destroyed her school possessions, and his traumatizing act of taking her much-loved cat Tabitha.

Here is a man full of rage, obsessed with money -- his prime reason for becoming a dentist -- who belittles Dolly to anyone who would listen while professing to her his love. All the details that reveal the path taken that led to Dolly Hearn's death and the mistake made in the original investigation, a mistake so overwhelming that anyone who has ever read a mystery or watched a police TV show would never have committed. And though all those around Dolly knew she had not taken her own life, that it had been Bart Corbin, when even the medical examiner noted the cause as undetermined, suicide was still given as the reason for death.

Not until Jennifer Corbin, Bart's wife, was found dead in her bed by her little son, the death wound the same as 14 years before, did the truth about Dolly's death become evident.

As Ann Rule reveals all the secrets Jenny Corbin was keeping hidden of an internet romance with a person she believed was a man named Chris, who turned out to be a woman, and her desire for a divorce, we see Bart Corbin's jealous rage with this discovery and the taking of his wife's life, setting the scene to once again represent a suicide. But officials this time have a protected crime scene.

Too Late to Say Goodbye takes hold of the reader right from the start and doesn't let up on the suspense with details making you gasp and wonder how families could ever let go of their anger. You care about the victims whether you live in Washington, Georgia, or in Phoenix, Arizona. You get to know these people, you care about them and the injustice of their deaths. You cheer the officersand District Attorneys. And for this reader, a wish that Barton Corbin had gotten death instead of life in prison.

Ann Rule in all her books is on the side of the victims. And she remembers them, and the anniversaries of when they died. She has known as a friend one of the vilest serial killers of all times, Ted Bundy, with whom she had worked and wrote about in The Stranger Beside Me.

With 26 New York Times bestsellers to her credit, the author considered America's #1 true crime writer was scheduled to in Washington- Wilkes Friday to speak and sign copies of Too Late to Say Goodbye. However, due to illness, the event will be rescheduled for a later date.

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