Review: Dear Killer by Katherine Ewell

Title: Dear Killer
Author: Katherine Ewell
Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books
Release Date: April 01, 2014
Source: Library
Find it Here: Amazon, Goodreads

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.

My thoughts: 

Dear Killer is definitely one of the most interesting books I've ever read. It’s so much more than a girl who kills and even though I somewhat predicted the ending, I thoroughly enjoyed getting to the end.

Kit, the main character, is a teenage girl and she kills people. She doesn't do it because she hates people or because she has a fetish or anything, she just kills because people ask her to. There is an anonymous drop box where people leave letters explaining why they want her to kill this specific person and usually a couple thousand dollars or so. If the letter is compelling enough, she decides to kill that person. But after she is done, she leaves the letter on the body for the police to find.

Kit was trained from a very young age to kill by her mother who was also a killer. But the difference is that her mother had a very deep need to kill, much like an addiction. Kit doesn't need to kill but she enjoys it very much. And she’s very good at what she does. She’s known in the media as the Perfect Killer because, obviously, she has not yet been caught.

The thing with Kit is that she literally has no remorse for the people she kills. She sees herself as a hired hand and since she is not the one making the decision that these people have to die, she doesn't feel guilty. She’s just the one doing the killing, just the executioner. Not the judge. I also enjoyed being in the scene when Kit killed someone. It shows how highly trained she is and that she is very intelligent. The fact that she is a teenager and goes to school is just to keep up appearance because deep down she is a killer.

Clearly people love or hate this book. I thought it was very interesting and I enjoyed being inside Kit’s head. It was definitely a memorable read for me.