Synopsis:
An account of the murder of stay-at-home mom Jenn Corbin, and the subsequent investigation that she was not the first woman in her husband’s life to die of a gunshot wound.

Review:
You’re now privy to one of the Superfast Reader’s deep dark secrets: I’ve read everything Ann Rule has ever written. Sometimes multiple times. I used to have a hellacious commute from NYC (where I live) to a job in Harrisburg, PA. Once a week I’d take Amtrak 4 hours each way to teach a 3-hour seminar. I did this for almost 4 years, and I discovered that nothing makes time on the road move faster than an account of true crime. So yesterday, when I found myself unexpectedly held up in the Charlotte airport with a dying laptop battery, I hit the bookstore and discovered a new magnum opus by La Rule.

Too Late To Say Goodbye was a miss, in my opinion. What happened to Jenn Corbin (and her poor sons) was certainly a tragedy, but apart from the media attention that Rule chronicles, the story never vaults into the stratosphere achieved by classic Rule works such as Small Sacrifices. The story feels better suited as the lead tale in one of Rule’s collections, rather than as the basis for a standalone.

My husband objects to true crime as exploitative, and in this case, he might be right. Without some greater meaning, lesson, or enlightenment into human nature, this is just another stalker-turned-murderer story.