★ 03/01/2022

After seven years on death row, serial killer Ansel Packer has mere hours to live. He has a plan, a theory, and a rock-solid certainty that his life won't end as simply as those girls'. Shifting perspectives among the man condemned by his choices and the stories of four women linked, through him, to each other, this audiobook is perfect for fans of psychological suspense and complex female characters. Jim Meskiman's nonchalance and gravelly conviction put listeners directly into contact with the banality of evil in Ansel's chapters. Mozhan Marno (who voices Lavender, who made the mother of all choices to save her own life; Saffron, a fellow foster child with a long memory and hunter's instincts; Hazel, raised in her twin sister's shadow; and Blue, young and hopeful of finding family) crafts a distinct tone for each woman, reflecting generational and class differences but imbuing all with the sympathetic capacity that Ansel notably lacks. With commentary on the institutions of American justice, this is a thoughtful exploration of crime and punishment. VERDICT The dual narrators perfectly contrast Ansel's suffocating solipsism with the tragically interwoven lives of the women who survive him. Recommended most highly.—Lauren Kage

★ 11/29/2021

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. (Jan.)

"Provocative, intelligent, thrilling, moving."

Bewitching . . . In [Kukafka's] capable hands, villainy turns out to be everywhere and nowhere, a DNA that could be found under the fingernails of everybody’s hands.

In Notes on an Execution, Danya Kukafka gives us something wrenchingly original, a rare and unsettling reading experience that challenges us to peel back what we believe about the criminal justice system, good and evil, and what human beings are capable of, both in darkness and in light. A moving tour de force of empathy and insight. I loved this book.”

"A searing portrait of the complicated women caught in the orbit of a serial killer. Notes on an Execution examines a culture that romanticizes men who kill while also exploring the lives of the overlooked women altered by this violence. Compassionate and thought-provoking."

"Spellbinding and beautifully written. Danya Kukafka’s Notes on an Execution is an irresistible, unbearably tense thriller; a poignant, deeply compassionate tale of resilience; and a vital intervention in the way we talk about violent crime, its endless reverberations and foremost its survivors."

"Reading Danya Kukafka’s Notes on an Execution is a profound and staggering experience of empathy that challenges us to confront what it means to be human in our darkest moments. The stories of these richly drawn characters are layered like nesting dolls, each one revealing more about how we love and how we survive. Kukafka’s prose, alive and poetic, is unforgettable. I relished every page of this brilliant and gripping masterpiece."

"A chilling, surprisingly tender tale of how each tragedy ripples through many lives."

Notes on an Execution is seriously important crime fiction that trains the lens on a serial killer's victims rather than on the criminal himself and shows how the legacy of violence endures for decades, leaving a tidal wave of collateral damage in its wake. Kukakfa's story is unflinching and unromantic yet wrenching and devastating in equal measure. Never falling into the easy trap of sensationalism, Notes on an Execution pushes women to the forefront of a narrative that has too often overlooked them and all they suffer.

★ 12/01/2021

In Kukafka's unshakable, deeply compassionate second novel (following Girl in Snow), a Death Row inmate's final hours spark a meditation on murder and our society's morbid fascination with the violent men who commit them. Ansel Packer, inmate number 999631, killed three girls as a teenager, the justifications for which he has included in a grand Theory that will outlive him and assert his importance. But Ansel is not the only character in his story, and Kukafka smartly foregrounds her narrative on three women in his orbit: his mother Lavender, who fled the abuse of her husband by abandoning Ansel and his infant brother; Hazel, the twin sister of Ansel's ex-wife; and Saffron, a young homicide detective who once lived with Ansel in foster care. Their ordeals, which span more than four decades and intertwine in unexpected ways, show how acts of violence echo through the generations. Kukafka wrings tremendous suspense out of a story that isn't a whodunit or even strictly a why-dunit, suspense born out of a desire to see these women transcend the identities consigned to them. VERDICT A contemporary masterpiece that sits alongside The Executioner's Song and Victim: The Other Side of Murder in the library of crime literature.—Michael Pucci, South Orange P.L., NJ