Notes on an Execution
The bestselling thriller that everyone is talking about
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
'THRILLING' Paula Hawkins
'COMPULSIVE' The Times
'SEARING' Brit Bennett
'DEVASTATING' Observer
'UNFORGETTABLE' Ashley Audrain
'BRILLIANT' Chris Whitaker
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.
WINNER OF THE MWA EDGAR AWARD FOR BEST NOVEL 2023
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This masterly thriller from Kukafka (Girl in Snow) opens on death row in a Texas prison, where Ansel Packer is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection in 12 hours. However, Packer, who's killed multiple women across the country, including in Texas and New York, isn't worried. That surprising attitude is accounted for by the early revelation that he befriended one of the prison guards and is plotting a last-minute escape. Flashbacks, starting with Packer's birth to a 17-year-old mother in 1973, trace his path from childhood to what seem to be his final hours. He grew up with an abusive father and began killing and mutilating animals when he was three. Those sections alternate with passages from the points of view of his mother, who was also abused, and of a New York State police investigator devoted to getting justice for Packer's victims. 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. Megan Abbott fans will be pleased.
