Notes on an Execution

I received an advance reader’s edition of Notes on an Execution by Danya Kukafka from the publisher (William Morrow). Notes on an Execution is scheduled for release on January 25, 2022.

Notes on an Execution follows the threads around Ansel Parker, a man who is hours away from his scheduled execution for the murders of four women. This novel is not about Ansel. Instead, it focuses on several women in his life (not the victims). We see Ansel’s interactions with them before he committed the murders, and how the women’s interactions with Ansel caused ripples through their lives after they knew him.

While we do get to know Ansel throughout the novel, we are much closer to his mother, a police officer on his case, and the sister of one of his victims. Each of these women is complete outside of their involvement with Ansel, rather than being a reflection of how he saw them. The women are also connected to each other, in ways that we learn by the end of the novel, but the women themselves do not always understand.

Overall, Notes on an Execution was a well-written fresh take on a serial killer story, focusing less on the “bad man” and more on the women whose lives he touched.