'eeply compassionate.A contemporary masterpiece that sits alongside The Executioner's Song and Victim: The Other Side of Murder in the library of crime literature.' - Library Journal (starred review) 'Kukafka crafts a disturbingly remorseless killer in Packer but infuses the events that draw readers to his final moments with raw empathy and lingering questions about human evil and the destruction left in its wake.' - Booklist (starred review) Megan Abbott fans will be pleased.' - Publishers Weekly (starred review) ' masterly thriller.Kukafka skillfully uses the second-person present tense to heighten the drama, and toward the end she makes devastatingly clear the toll taken by Packer's killings. As the clock ticks down, these three women sift through the choices that culminate in tragedy, exploring the rippling fissures that such destruction inevitably leaves in its wake.īlending breathtaking suspense with astonishing empathy, Notes on an Execution presents a chilling portrait of womanhood as it simultaneously unravels the familiar narrative of the American serial killer, interrogating our system of justice and our cultural obsession with crime stories, asking readers to consider the false promise of looking for meaning in the psyches of violent men.

We meet his mother, Lavender, a seventeen-year-old girl pushed to desperation Hazel, twin sister to Ansel's wife, inseparable since birth, forced to watch helplessly as her sister's relationship threatens to devour them all and finally, Saffy, the detective hot on his trail, who has devoted herself to bringing bad men to justice but struggles to see her own life clearly. Through a kaleidoscope of women-a mother, a sister, a homicide detective-we learn the story of Ansel's life. But Ansel doesn't want to die he wants to be celebrated, understood. He knows what he's done, and now awaits execution, the same chilling fate he forced on those girls, years ago. In the tradition of Long Bright River and The Mars Room, a gripping and atmospheric work of literary suspense that deconstructs the story of a serial killer on death row, told primarily through the eyes of the women in his life - from the bestselling author of Girl in Snow.Īnsel Packer is scheduled to die in twelve hours.

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