Dear Killer by Katherine Ewell

Title: Dear Killer
Author: Katherine Ewell
Rating: 4 stars

Synopsis: Rule One—Nothing is right, nothing is wrong.
Rule Two—Be careful.
Rule Three—Fight using your legs whenever possible, because they’re the strongest part of your body. Your arms are the weakest.
Rule Four—Hit to kill. The first blow should be the last, if at all possible.
Rule Five—The letters are the law.

Kit takes her role as London’s notorious “Perfect Killer” seriously. The letters and cash that come to her via a secret mailbox are not a game; choosing who to kill is not an impulse decision. Every letter she receives begins with “Dear Killer,” and every time Kit murders, she leaves a letter with the dead body. Her moral nihilism and thus her murders are a way of life—the only way of life she has ever known.

But when a letter appears in the mailbox that will have the power to topple Kit’s convictions as perfectly as she commits her murders, she must make a decision: follow the only rules she has ever known, or challenge Rule One, and go from there.

Katherine Ewell’s Dear Killer is a sinister psychological thriller that explores the thin line between good and evil, and the messiness of that inevitable moment when life contradicts everything you believe.

Cover: 

Review:

Our protagonist, Kit, is a seventeen year old serial killer. She learned from her mother, who is quite crazy, and she receives requests for kills from a hole in a bathroom stall at a little coffee shop.

But, unlike most serial killers, she's not insane. She kills 'as a consequence of the way I was raised.' 

  

At least, she doesn't think she's insane.

Kit has several very honest character traits, which she is not honest about. She loves gloating. She loves the fact that she can dance around these police officers and give them every clue they need--and still have them utterly baffled. 

She is basically a narcissist. She knows she's good at what she does and she loves it because she's good at it. She tries to tell herself that she can stop at anytime, but she can't. She doesn't have anything to fall back on. She doesn't believe that she can start over, despite what she tells herself. 

She refers to her mother lovingly, despite that fact that the woman is completely bonkers. Her father is gone so much it's as if he's dead and she has no other siblings. Her mother doesn't kill anymore, due to the fact that she almost got caught. She taught Kit how to kill for closure, to know that there is some kind of 'justice' out there.

Which, of course, brings up the question: Who decides whether or not someone deserves to die? Kit's mother believed it was the people's choice, not Kit's. Kit was a means to an end. She was meant to do, not question or decide. But then, Kit begins to wonder, why can't she make the decisions? Isn't she a part of the people?

She forgets, her mother explains, that she--The Perfect Killer--is a symbol. She's not a vigilante or a hero, she's a symbol. The people need her, a disruption, to group together and form a sense of unity. Her mother reasons that Kit's persona is doing much more good than bad, as it unifies the people and breaks them out of a false sense of security.

Ewell could have done more for the psychological feel of the book. Above I highlighted the main points of Kit's crazy, but there was more that the author could have made clear to the reader. The end was also a bit disappointing, but they often are to me. Very few endings make me satisfied with the book.

All in all, for a young writer like Ewell, it was very well written and thought out. But, I don't give slack for that kind of crap, so in the end I liked it alright, but not as much as I might have if Ewell spent a little bit more time on the feel of the book. The feel, the aura, whatever, has to be set from page one or else you lose the reader's emotions. This one was a bit undecided, and right when it seemed to settle into one it swapped out.

I'd recommend it for teen readers who want a thriller to read. It's not a fluff book, and it's not humorous. Attempts at humor fell flat and awkward. It did keep the reader guessing in suspense at most parts, although there were a few very pivotal points that I could see coming from miles away.

xxAvalon