Notes on an Execution

August 1, 2021

One cannot expect Kukafa, author of Girl in Snow, a much-praised best seller proclaimed a Best Summer Read by over a half-dozen venues, to turn in anything ordinary. Her second novel concerns serial killer Ansel Packer, about to be executed, who wants his bad deeds to be understood. His life is told through the lives of three women: his frantic mother, who gave birth at 17; his wife's twin sister, who watched Ansel destroy all that was good in their lives; and the homicide detective whose goal is to track down evil men.

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Starred review from November 29, 2021
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. Agent: Dana Murphy, Book Group.

January 15, 2022
A murderer on death row awaits his execution. Ansel Packer has 12 hours to live. Emotionally detached from the deaths of Izzy Sanchez, Angela Meyer, and Lila Marony, the three girls he murdered almost 30 years ago, he's chiefly focused on the escape plan he's made with Shawna Billings, a prison guard, and his manifesto, in which he philosophizes about the nature of good and evil in the human psyche. While the clock ticks, Ansel is moved from Polunsky, his prison of the last seven years, to the Walls Unit, the last stop before his execution. Meanwhile, an earlier timeline presents the stories of Lavender, Ansel's lonely and abused mother, who abandoned him; Hazel, the twin sister of Ansel's former wife, Jenny Fisk, whom he may--or may not--have murdered; and Saffron Singh, a New York State police investigator, who has her own disturbing history with Ansel. Ansel is a chilling, creepy monster, tormented by memories of his mother and baby brother and hoping for sympathy that's never quite realized. The women's stories contain too much extraneous information and generally lack the emotional depth they need to compete with Ansel's fascinating creepiness. The backstory-heavy structure results in a slow pace whenever Ansel isn't present. His moment-of-death epiphany feels forced and is ultimately unconvincing. As a result, the promise of the intriguing premise in the early chapters isn't sustained. An epilogue that imagines the unlived lives of the murdered girls subtracts more than it adds. A slow-paced portrait of a condemned serial killer and the women who disappointed him.

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January 1, 2022
Serial killer Ansel Packer is on death row. His path to execution is revealed in flashback through the eyes of Lavender, the mother who abandoned him; Saffron Singh, the detective who tracked him; and Hazel, the sister of his wife. Lavender clings to the belief that she rescued her sons by sending child services for Ansel and his baby brother after she fled their sadistic father. In contrast, Singh has been convinced of Packer's malevolence since they were kids and she discovered his collection of mutilated animals outside their foster home. Singh has been investigating the unsolved disappearances of three local women and knows that Packer killed them, just like he did those animals years ago, but she can't crack his respectable image. When Singh finally shatters Packer's facade, the three women are caught in the explosive fallout. Kukafka (author of young-adult thriller Girl in Snow, 2017) 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 the destruction left in its wake.

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