Notes on an Execution

 

By Danya Kukafka

Review

A 2023 Top Rated Read

Ansel Packer was born into a dysfunctional family. Abandoned by his parents at a young age and left to fend for himself and his baby brother, his life was shaped from the moment he entered the world. 

Notes on an Execution follows Ansel Packer as he transitions from a boy in the foster care system into a cold, calculating, serial killer. The reader first meets him as he awaits execution on Death Row. What follows is a retrospective look into his life as the clock counts down from twelve hours to zero and his execution.

Wow, what a fantastic, emotional read! The author's writing is expressively beautiful. With a totally different perspective on the serial killer genre, it's refreshing yet tragic. Voices are given to three women whose lives have been impacted. The prose is mesmerising as it delves deep into the psyche of a killer. This is a book that stays with you long after the closing chapter. A wonderful study of a life wasted. . . what could have been but never was.             

★★★★★

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Phoenix
• Publication Year: 2022
• Author: Danya Kukafka
• Genre: Crime (Serial Killers), Contemporary Fiction, Literary Fiction, Thriller

Synopsis

Ansel Packer is scheduled to die in twelve hours. But this is not his story.

Ansel doesn't want to die; he wants to be celebrated, understood. Yet now he awaits the same fate he forced on those girls, years ago.

This is the story of the women who survive.

As the clock ticks down, three women - a mother, a sister, a detective - reckon with the choices that culminate in tragedy, the impact on those in its wake, and the possibility of redemption.