Son: A Psychopath and His Victims by Jack Olsen

Paperback:  Spokane, Washington - the all-American City, the perfect place to raise children.

Yet for two terror-filled years (1978-1981) a brutal rapist stalked its night streets.

On the surface he was clean-cut, conservative, well-spoken.

Behind the mask he was diabolical, violent, twisted.

But nobody guessed, not even his pretty housemate, that Fred Coe was a psychopath dangerously out of control.

And nobody dreamed that Ruth Coe, his mother, would try to kill the prosecutor and judge who put "Son" away.

The author paints the portrait of a man whose exterior grandiosity and air of savoir faire barely conceal his deep insecurity about his career failures - a temperamental prima donna who emulates the pathetic hero of "American Gigolo."

On another even more compelling level, this is the story of the women in Fred's life:  his histrionic, clinging mother;  a wife and later a girlfriend, both devoted to Fred, who are devastated by his exposure as a brutal rapist.

Son is a "chilling and exhaustingly detailed account of familial madness and the social chaos it can beget." (The Weekly, Seattle, Washington)

A highly recommended read.

About the author:  Jack Olsen (1925-2002) is the author of thirty-three books published in fifteen countries and eleven languages, including the highly acclaimed Predator:  Rape, Madness and Injustice in Seattle (1991) which won the American Mystery Award for Best True Crime and his most notable work, "Son":  A Psychopath and His Victims (1983), which won a Special Edgar from the Mystery Writers of America.  Most of Olsen's books investigated the life histories of violent career criminals including studies of serial rapists.

A former bureau chief for Time, Olsen has won the National Headliners Award, citations for excellence from Indiana and Columbia universities, the Washington State Governor's Award, the Scripps-Howard Award, among others, and was listed in Who's Who in America since 1968 and in Who's Who in the World since 1967.  He was named to the Mystery Writers of America's fact-crime committee in 1996 and appointed chair in 1997.

The Philadelphia Inquirer described him as "an American treasure", the Washington Post described him as "the dean of true crime authors" and the New York Daily News lauded him as "the master of true crime".  His studies of crime are required reading in university criminology courses and have been cited  in the New York Times Notable Books of the Year.  In a page-one review, the Times described his work as "a genuine contribution to criminology and journalism alike".

A nationally respected expert on the psychology of criminals, Olsen appeared on Good Morning America, Sally Jessy Raphael, Donahue, Geraldo, Larry King Live, and other network interview shows.  He was the father of eight, a native of Philadelphia, a fishing fanatic and lived on an island in Puget Sound, Washington, where he passed away at the age of seventy-seven on 16 July 2002.