He was the kind of kid we know all too well in reality and fiction, the kind who ends up recognizable by a single name, like Dahmer, or by a horrific nickname, like the Night Stalker. As a child, he tortured animals, flayed them and displayed them. The truth is sobering: There isn’t a time. When we meet him, he’s ticking down the last 12 hours of his life, hoping in equal measure for a reprieve from the state or a fantastic escape – neither seems like a realistic possibility – while also examining the choices he made that brought him to his ultimate fate: “There must have been a time… time before you were like this.”

Serial killer Ansel Packer is on death row for four murders we know he committed. There’s no mystery at the heart of “Notes on an Execution,” Danya Kukafka’s poetic and mesmerizing second novel (William Morrow, 320 pp., ★★★★ out of four, out Tuesday). 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.Watch Video: Martha Stewart reveals she dated Anthony Hopkins 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 homicide 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. He hoped it wouldn’t end like this, not for him. 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. Ansel Packer is scheduled to die in twelve hours.

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