I have just finished reading “Every Breath You Take,” written by one of my favorite true-crime authors, Ann Rule. This book was another gift from my mother. Although it wasn’t available in bookstores for Christmas, it was released in time for my January birthday. She made an excellent choice with this book. Once I started reading it, I was instantly drawn into this story that involved many characters. The crime committed altered five families’ lives in a most negative fashion.
Ann Rule begins this tale in November 1997 with the horrific, gruesome murder of Sheila Bellush in Sarasota, Florida. From there, it backtracks through the story of Sheila’s short life (from birth to age 35). The second part of this tragic story focuses on the life of her ex-husband, Allen Blackthorne (ne Allen Van Houte). Rule brilliantly weaves the milestones of their lives up to the time they meet and, shortly thereafter, marry.
Both Sheila and Allen grew up in less than stellar circumstances. Sheila’s childhood would have been an unstable one, had it not been for the unconditional love of her mother and her sister, Kerry. Sheila was a bright and beautiful young woman, who rose above the sadness of her childhood to become a lovely young woman, full of promise, faith, and the potential to make a positive impression on the lives of those around her. Although she was a very positive and upbeat young lady, she had a premonition throughout her life, that she would not live a long life. She was only twenty when she had the misfortune of meeting and falling in love with Allen Van Houte.
Allen Van Houte Blackthorne barely stood a chance. He was the product of a cataclysmic relationship between his parents. His mother, Karen, was a very pretty, but very troubled young woman who found herself pregnant with Guy Van Houte’s child. Guy Van Houte married Karen. However, their marriage ended before Allen was born. Guy fled Karen’s turbulent moods and violent behavior. This wasn’t the first child he’d left behind. When he left Karen, he left for good. He had literally nothing to do with his young son’s upbringing.
Allen was taken from his mother and placed in the care of his grandparents. Whenever he visited his mother, the result was often violent. He was beaten, neglected, and left to care for himself. He was tossed back and forth, much like a football, between his grandparents’ and his aunt and uncle’s homes. Although his grandmother and his aunt and uncle loved him very much, it was too late to save Allen. He had virtually cut himself off from everyone. He learned only too look out for himself, no matter what the cost to others.
Sheila had no way of knowing about Allen’s past. He, to her, was a handsome and charming man who seemed to love her so very much. She knew he had just divorced and felt sorry for the poor financial circumstances he had found himself in. She met him while working for a law firm. He was a client of the firm. Their meeting couldn’t have been more unfortunate for Sheila. She had no idea that she had fallen in love with a con man.
Their marriage produced two daughters. Sheila was a loving wife and mother. However, after the birth of her second daughter, she began to catch glimpses of Allen’s dark side. He had the remarkable ability to outsmart the judicial system and was always running one scam or the other. He also had some very bizarre sexual perversions. Sheila knew that she had to get out of the marriage. Allen, however, had given her an ultimatum of either staying with him, or leaving. If she chose to leave, he made it very clear to both her and her sister, Kerry, that he would take their daughters from her and she would be maimed or murdered.
Sheila plucked up the courage to leave Allen, but she was constantly looking over her shoulder, terrified for her life. Some thought she was simply paranoid; her lifetime premonition, turned out to be true. Sheila was brutally murdered after she remarried and gave birth to quadruplets.
The events that led up to Sheila’s murder were suspenseful and riveting. Allen’s brilliance in preparing a plot to kill Sheila made it difficult to tie him to the crime. The third quarter of the book focused on the police investigation and the final trials of the four people involved in her murder. The task of unfolding the plot seemed impossible, as police authorities in the states of Florida and Texas had to literally work backward.
Ann Rule dismantles the conspiracy of Sheila Bellush’s murder in such a way that the reader is mesmerized. The intricately tangled web of lies and truths is explained in language that the reader can easily understand. The reader is never lost or misled. Rule explains every aspect of the complot in great detail, literally getting into the thought processes of the mastermind behind the plot and his pawns who carried it out.
I was never bored or confused while reading this book. Rule kept my interest up until the very last words of the final chapter.
“Every Breath You Take” is a chilling story of a man so psychologically disturbed that it took a myriad of diagnoses to explain his personality disorders. It is not a book for the faint-hearted, as it is packed full of details that are often gruesome and sickening.
There are some special features in this book that are very helpful to the reader. Before the story begins, Rule gives us a “cast of characters.” Each character in the book is presented with a brief overview of their role and important facts about their life. She also tells us why she wrote this story, which is an interesting vignette in itself. A collection of photos of the characters involved help the reader envision each event as it unfolds.
This book was one that I found hard to put down. I would catch myself reading it in the morning before I went to work, on my lunch breaks, and in bed before dropping off to sleep. I will tell you that there were times that I actually had nightmares about what I had read. However, the story was so riveting that, once caught up in it, I couldn’t leave the book unfinished.
For more information on this book and other outstanding stories by Ann Rule, please be sure to have a look at her website, www.annrules.com. It is packed with useful information about her books, as well as how the victim’s families are coping years after the crime(s) took place. It also gives insight into the author and the projects she is currently working on.
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