Grandmother Ruth Sutton writes to the man she hates more than anyone else on the planet: the man who she believes killed her daughter Lizzie in a brutal attack four years earlier. Ruth’s burden of grief and hatred, has only grown heavier with the passing of time, her avid desire for vengeance ever stronger. In writing to him Ruth hopes to exorcise the corrosive emotions that are destroying her life, to find the truth and with it release and a way forward. Whether she can ever truly forgive him is another matter – but the letters are her last, best hope.
Letters To My Daughter’s Killer exposes the aftermath of violent crime for an ordinary family and explores fundamental questions of crime and punishment. How do we deal with the very human desire for revenge? If we get justice does reconciliation follow? Can we really forgive those who do us the gravest wrong? Could you?
I’m a big fan of books written in letter / diary format as I find they are usually far more emotionally charged and are an enjoyable and easier way in which to connect with a character.
Letters To My Daughters Killer ticks all those boxes for me, in fact I actually sat and read it in just one sitting because there was absolutely no way I was putting this book down once I had started. The rawness of the emotions involved leaps from the page, and you can’t help but feel every shred of anger, rage, hurt and disappointment that Ruth is feeling.
Beginning four years after the murder of her daughter Lizzie, it follows the events immediately after her death, the police investigation and the arrest and trial of her murderer. The trial scenes are some of the best I’ve read, coming across as true to life of real court cases, and as the killer’s legal team spin their case you will feel as uncertain as Ruth as to whether or not the culprit will pay for his crime.
If you are looking for something different from your usual police procedural, psychological thriller, or race against time novel, you will not go wrong in choosing Letters To My Daughters Killer.
Life of Cri.me 