Notes on an Execution
About This Book
Ansel Packer has twelve hours left before his execution. He has been convicted of crimes against girls, and he now faces the same end he dealt to them. What he seems to want most is not survival but recognition, to be seen and celebrated for who he believes he is. The novel is told through three women connected to him. Lavender, his mother, was only seventeen when she had him and was driven nearly to despair. Hazel is the twin of Ansel's wife, and the two have never been apart. She must watch helplessly as her sister's marriage begins to threaten everyone around them. Saffy is the detective who has pursued Ansel, a woman devoted to putting violent men behind bars, yet she has trouble understanding her own life. As the hours run out, the three women retrace the decisions that led to the crimes and the tragedy, and they trace the damage that spreads outward to everyone left behind. The book is suspenseful but also deeply empathetic, and it centers womanhood while reversing the familiar shape of the American serial killer story. It questions the justice system and the public appetite for true crime, and it asks whether searching for meaning inside the minds of violent men is worth doing at all.
ISBN: 9780063052758
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