Cannonball Read 15

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The Serial Killer Book I’ve Been Waiting For

Notes On An Execution by Danya Kukafka

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I went in to this book so wary! I’m not a huge fan of serial killers or the true crime mania that glorifies men who murder (mostly) women. So even though I’d seen glowing review after breathless recommendation of Notes On an Execution, I doubted I’d get past 20%. I am never so pleased to be wrong than when it comes to loving an unexpected book. The premise of this one is simple, it is the day of Ansel Power’s execution. There are brief chapters […]

Very few people believed that they were bad, and this was the scariest part. Human nature could be so hideous, but it persisted in this ugliness by insisting it was good.”

Notes on an Execution by Danya Kukafka

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Cannonball Read Bingo: Scandal In one word: Evocative This book came by recommendation of a like-minded reading pal who threw the phrase “best book I read all year” out, so I decided that reading it was a no-brainer, especially as I was looking for something dark and spooky. It doesn’t get much darker than a male serial killer of women, especially as true crime is having such a surge in popularity in recent years. Plus, I needed something for my Cannonball Read bingo “scandal” card […]

Come for the gratuitous torture porn. Stay for the randy sex scenes. 

Birdman by Mo Hayder

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Weirdly enough, Goodreads gave me Calvin and Hobbes in their other-readers-also-enjoyed-selection. And I get it. There is never a bad time for Calvin and Hobbes, but I definitely need some eye bleach after this one.  London, 1999. During construction work on an empty lot, the dead body of a woman is found. Her body is severely decomposed and it takes the police a while to identify her. More bodies are found. They all belong to strippers, prostitutes, drug addicts – people who are loved by […]

Full of Bad Conclusions, But Readable Overall

The Shrine of Jeffrey Dahmer by Brian Masters

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I have very mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, it’s a good overview of the case and conveys some of its complexity. It lays out Dahmer’s childhood and mental state well, and the narrative is clear without feeling overly voyeuristic. On the other hand, I disagreed with a lot of the author’s opinions and felt that his reliance on a Freudian model was a huge failing in the book. His main conclusion is that the hernia operation Dahmer had when he was […]

Bodily Harm

A Certain Hunger by Chelsea G. Summers

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I meant to cobble this together along with some other books I’ve been reading the last few days into one review. But I couldn’t with this one. From the first few pages, I knew it would grab me. And it had the energy to carry to the end. I’m a gracious grader when it comes to reviews. I don’t mind that. A four star book for me is a good book. A three star one is a good book with nebulous flaws. I don’t give […]

The Nothing Man: A worthy entry into the emerging meta-true crime genre

The Nothing Man by Catherine Ryan Howard

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This was a really fun book!!! Earlier in the year, I read Every Last Fear which follows the story of a young man whose family was killed and whose story became a true crime phenomenon. The Nothing Man falls into the same category of meta-true crime fiction, and it highlights the importance of the victims who are often left out of the narrative.  The story of The Nothing Man takes place in county Cork in Ireland, and is told from two perspectives. One is from […]



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