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Executioner
Three survivors of an automobile crash, in which the driver was killed, are threatened by an executioner who believes they too should die.
Mass Market Paperback
First published April 1, 1982
4 people are currently reading
97 people want to read
About the author
Jay Bennett
45 books16 followersJay Bennett (born in New York City, December 24, 1912, died June 27, 2009 in Cherry Hill, NJ) was an American author and two-time winner of the Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America. Bennett won the Edgar for Best Juvenile novel in 1974 and 1975, for The Long Black Coat (Delacorte Press) and The Dangling Witness (Delacorte Press), respectively. He was the first author to win an Edgar in consecutive years. A third book, The Skeleton Man (Franklin Watts), was nominated in 1987. Bennett is best known among English teachers and young adults for these and other juvenile mysteries, like Deathman, Do Not Follow Me (Scholastic).
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
January 25, 2018
This book was not very interesting because the plot seemed to move very slow and tried to have elements of suspense to it, but yet it still didn't strike me as an interesting book. It did have its exciting moments that helped it become a somewhat intriguing thriller, even if at some points its seemed kind of predictable. The plotline itself seems very interesting, as the description says, "Three survivors of an automobile crash, in which the driver was killed, are threatened by an executioner who believes they too should die." It also gave off a Goosebumps feel to it. I recommend this book to anyone who is open to crime/mystery books and maybe are a fan of the Goosebumps series.
January 14, 2026
Rounding up to three stars from 2.5 for GR.
Another Avon Flare book that seemed interesting at first. The cool cover photo looks like something out of the horror film The Burning so I naturally felt drawn toward it.
Bennett takes time building up the suspense but is also a little slow on getting us up to speed on what we are dealing with plot wise. When the pieces come together like an excruciatingly long jigsaw puzzle of 1,000 pieces it still takes time to figure out where we are headed.
Bruce is the survivor of a car accident but not the only one. Two others survived being thrown from the vehicle but only Bruce had to have surgery to reconstruct his face, and he needs a cane to get around. Pretty hard for a high school senior to deal with especially when your best friend was the only casualty.
Raymond was driving and everyone believes that all four occupants were completely drunk but Bruce knows better. Raymond was as sober as could be when he decided to drive all of his inebriated friends home after leaving Carson's on that Saturday night. He and Bruce had stopped there just to get coffee, but Ed and Elaine were so smashed, and they began hassling the owner for more beer.
Bruce knows the accident was his fault.
If only he hadn't tried to grab for that hat on Raymond's head like the drunk dumbass he was, and they wouldn't have hit that tree on impact so hard. Bruce wants to tell the truth but Raymond's father, a police officer, has made it and open and shut case believing that his youngest son was a drunk driver who didn't survive.
Ed and Elaine don't remember anything from that night, and Bruce has decided to play dumb, but the guilt has left him changed.
Someone else has decided that it isn't enough...
Someone out there has decided to be the judge and jury and declare that the survivors be executed and punished. By fire, by water and by the earth is how each one should meet their fitting end.
There are some pretty good suspects stacked up: Raymond's older brother Oliver, Raymond's girlfriend, the owner of Carson's which got shut down for providing alcohol to minors, an old preacher that use to dole out punishments to the young sinners before being run out of town.
At times, we are even given hints that Raymond's police officer dad is taking justice into his own hands or that perhaps Bruce had some sort of psychotic break from the accident and is only imagining that he and his friends are being stalked by a killer.
The Executioner is a tale dealing again with the process of grief and guilt but in more of the suspense thriller vein with a sort of a sin factor issue. For anyone who has lost somebody in a terrible accident, it is a hard book to get through but therapeutic in a way.
You can see the climatic reveal almost a mile away, but the actual ending is full of a bittersweet kind of closure. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes a gripping thriller without any gore as long as you don't mind the suspense taking its sweet time to create an uneasy atmosphere.
Another Avon Flare book that seemed interesting at first. The cool cover photo looks like something out of the horror film The Burning so I naturally felt drawn toward it.
Bennett takes time building up the suspense but is also a little slow on getting us up to speed on what we are dealing with plot wise. When the pieces come together like an excruciatingly long jigsaw puzzle of 1,000 pieces it still takes time to figure out where we are headed.
Bruce is the survivor of a car accident but not the only one. Two others survived being thrown from the vehicle but only Bruce had to have surgery to reconstruct his face, and he needs a cane to get around. Pretty hard for a high school senior to deal with especially when your best friend was the only casualty.
Raymond was driving and everyone believes that all four occupants were completely drunk but Bruce knows better. Raymond was as sober as could be when he decided to drive all of his inebriated friends home after leaving Carson's on that Saturday night. He and Bruce had stopped there just to get coffee, but Ed and Elaine were so smashed, and they began hassling the owner for more beer.
Bruce knows the accident was his fault.
If only he hadn't tried to grab for that hat on Raymond's head like the drunk dumbass he was, and they wouldn't have hit that tree on impact so hard. Bruce wants to tell the truth but Raymond's father, a police officer, has made it and open and shut case believing that his youngest son was a drunk driver who didn't survive.
Ed and Elaine don't remember anything from that night, and Bruce has decided to play dumb, but the guilt has left him changed.
Someone else has decided that it isn't enough...
Someone out there has decided to be the judge and jury and declare that the survivors be executed and punished. By fire, by water and by the earth is how each one should meet their fitting end.
There are some pretty good suspects stacked up: Raymond's older brother Oliver, Raymond's girlfriend, the owner of Carson's which got shut down for providing alcohol to minors, an old preacher that use to dole out punishments to the young sinners before being run out of town.
At times, we are even given hints that Raymond's police officer dad is taking justice into his own hands or that perhaps Bruce had some sort of psychotic break from the accident and is only imagining that he and his friends are being stalked by a killer.
The Executioner is a tale dealing again with the process of grief and guilt but in more of the suspense thriller vein with a sort of a sin factor issue. For anyone who has lost somebody in a terrible accident, it is a hard book to get through but therapeutic in a way.
You can see the climatic reveal almost a mile away, but the actual ending is full of a bittersweet kind of closure. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes a gripping thriller without any gore as long as you don't mind the suspense taking its sweet time to create an uneasy atmosphere.
January 16, 2017
I found this gem in a used bookstore and the cover was so familiar I had to read it to find out if I had read it before. I'm almost certain I had, but there were no details that really jumped out at me as being unique. Maybe I just saw this book on the shelf at the library and never read it.
Bruce is back at home after what he calls the "crackup" - a term I would use for a mental breakdown. Bruce also uses this term to refer to a mental breakdown later on, but for now he means the car accident that claimed the life of his best friend Raymond. With his new face (apparently a lot of plastic surgery was needed) and a cane, Bruce wanders around town having flashbacks of that night, when he was a drunk asshole and made Raymond drive off the road while grabbing for Ray's stupid hat. Also in the car, passed out drunk, were Ed and Elaine, who Ray and Bruce picked up after a few drinks at Carlson's. Because, you know, high schoolers have no problem getting drinks down at the local bar - I have a feeling this book was originally published in the UK, because even in 1982 the US legal drinking age was 21.
When Ed tells Bruce that he received a threatening phone call from a preacher who the police claim is dead, and then promptly dies in a fire in the boys' locker room, Bruce is alarmed. Who could the murderer be? Is it the creepy preacher? Is it the owner of Carlson's, who had to close down after the accident? Maybe it's Raymond's older brother Oliver, who is "hard to read"? (And by the way, have you ever heard that phrase, "hard to read"? Because, if you read this book, you might think no one has ever used this phrase before, given how several pages are devoted to explaining it and how it's super unique that Raymond and Oliver's father uses it.) OR - could the murderer be a mysterious executioner who wants to see justice for Raymond's lost life? A mysterious executioner, who apparently has to access a safe deposit box three times to make sure he's killing the naughty teen alcoholics off "By fire, by water, and by earth." There also a pretty heavy possibility that the killer is Bruce himself.
I had a pretty strong feeling who the killer was, and I was right. And yet I still didn't quite understand the safe deposit box situation. Who, exactly, put these instructions in the safe deposit box? Could the executioner really not remember the instructions after one visit? There was a complete lack of gore, but lots of tension, with short chapters ending on cliffhangers. Bruce was all mopey and consumed with his own guilt, and most of the characters were fairly flat, in the style of the times and genre, where everyone is a suspect. It seemed like any character could burst into a screaming sermon about how Bruce and his friends were sinners, including, but not limited to: Janet (Ray's girlfriend), Oliver, Reverend Dunn, and Bruce himself. Overall this was a fast-paced read and a decent thriller if you ignore the giant plot hole of the security deposit box.
Bruce is back at home after what he calls the "crackup" - a term I would use for a mental breakdown. Bruce also uses this term to refer to a mental breakdown later on, but for now he means the car accident that claimed the life of his best friend Raymond. With his new face (apparently a lot of plastic surgery was needed) and a cane, Bruce wanders around town having flashbacks of that night, when he was a drunk asshole and made Raymond drive off the road while grabbing for Ray's stupid hat. Also in the car, passed out drunk, were Ed and Elaine, who Ray and Bruce picked up after a few drinks at Carlson's. Because, you know, high schoolers have no problem getting drinks down at the local bar - I have a feeling this book was originally published in the UK, because even in 1982 the US legal drinking age was 21.
When Ed tells Bruce that he received a threatening phone call from a preacher who the police claim is dead, and then promptly dies in a fire in the boys' locker room, Bruce is alarmed. Who could the murderer be? Is it the creepy preacher? Is it the owner of Carlson's, who had to close down after the accident? Maybe it's Raymond's older brother Oliver, who is "hard to read"? (And by the way, have you ever heard that phrase, "hard to read"? Because, if you read this book, you might think no one has ever used this phrase before, given how several pages are devoted to explaining it and how it's super unique that Raymond and Oliver's father uses it.) OR - could the murderer be a mysterious executioner who wants to see justice for Raymond's lost life? A mysterious executioner, who apparently has to access a safe deposit box three times to make sure he's killing the naughty teen alcoholics off "By fire, by water, and by earth." There also a pretty heavy possibility that the killer is Bruce himself.
I had a pretty strong feeling who the killer was, and I was right. And yet I still didn't quite understand the safe deposit box situation. Who, exactly, put these instructions in the safe deposit box? Could the executioner really not remember the instructions after one visit? There was a complete lack of gore, but lots of tension, with short chapters ending on cliffhangers. Bruce was all mopey and consumed with his own guilt, and most of the characters were fairly flat, in the style of the times and genre, where everyone is a suspect. It seemed like any character could burst into a screaming sermon about how Bruce and his friends were sinners, including, but not limited to: Janet (Ray's girlfriend), Oliver, Reverend Dunn, and Bruce himself. Overall this was a fast-paced read and a decent thriller if you ignore the giant plot hole of the security deposit box.
May 27, 2011
A student of mine has recommended this to me multiple times... I'm seriously being pressured to read this!
So, I read it and I will say it's not as gripping a "read-aloud" as many books I've tried. It tries to be suspenseful but I think that YA literature has come a long ways since this book was published. The language was stilted and the dialogue left a lot to be desired. It was creepy, but in a flat sort of way. I wanted to like it more than I did.
So, I read it and I will say it's not as gripping a "read-aloud" as many books I've tried. It tries to be suspenseful but I think that YA literature has come a long ways since this book was published. The language was stilted and the dialogue left a lot to be desired. It was creepy, but in a flat sort of way. I wanted to like it more than I did.
August 30, 2018
Jay Bennett's YA suspense novel "The Executioner" gets the job done without ever firing up the reader's emotions overly much. I suppose it's a "mystery," though I'm not sure one could piece together the killer's identity based on clues. It seems everyone poor eighteen-year-old Bruce comes across gives him a leery look, or a devious grin, that is here and then gone.
Who's killing the survivor's of Bruce's horrible car crash? Is it the police chief, whose son was killed in the accident? Is it the crazed preacher who moved out of town years ago, thought to be dead? Is it the victim's brother?
Bruce is a one-note character. He's full of frustration and guilt from page one to page 174. The other characters are developed enough to get us from one chapter to another. The chapters are short, which is ideal for stories of this style. The action is crisp and clear, and the dialogue sometimes stilted but mostly clear.
Who's killing the survivor's of Bruce's horrible car crash? Is it the police chief, whose son was killed in the accident? Is it the crazed preacher who moved out of town years ago, thought to be dead? Is it the victim's brother?
Bruce is a one-note character. He's full of frustration and guilt from page one to page 174. The other characters are developed enough to get us from one chapter to another. The chapters are short, which is ideal for stories of this style. The action is crisp and clear, and the dialogue sometimes stilted but mostly clear.
June 4, 2020
I loved this book. I was having a hard time figuring out who the killer was. I was surprised at the ending.
May 30, 2022
A perfectly serviceable and enjoyable little thriller with enough meat to get you through.
Just good and quick.
Just good and quick.
January 18, 2023
really 2 1/2 stars....
September 9, 2012
Yet another YA novel. This one is about a kid who survives a drunk-driving accident in which his best friend was killed. At least, that's the official story; the truth is, his friend wasn't really drunk, but everyone else in the car was and they were distracting the driver. Now all 3 are getting phone calls from someone who seems to know what really happened, and one by one they "commit suicide." Except Bruce--the main character--knows they weren't suicidal....
Pretty good story, although I did figure out the culprit quite early.
Pretty good story, although I did figure out the culprit quite early.
October 27, 2014
I read this book aloud to my reading class. It's an easy read, about 4th-5th grade reading level. It had great suspense. I liked it. My students loved it. They wanted to read ahead to find out what happened. I recommend this for a high school class with low level readers.
October 6, 2008
this is a really good mystery book about a person who believes everybody who commits a crime should be punished.
i would perfer this book who likes a good crime/mystery books
i would perfer this book who likes a good crime/mystery books
May 11, 2011
Probabley the best book i have read in my life. Its such a mystery and it kept me reading the whole time. I think my favorite part is when he gets a new face.
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October 25, 2011 This week I have been reading The Executioner. This book is a good book
August 26, 2012
This book was ok, I would not recommend it just because it was just okay, I would say it was a slightly crappier version of a fear street novel.
May 9, 2013
This book is very predictable. It reminded me of RL Stine or Christopher Pike.
August 5, 2016
Like Robert Cormier, Jay Bennett opened the door for the likes of RL Stine, Christopher Pike, and the many other current writers who are able to write dark and realistic stories for teens.
July 29, 2014
This is a very dark book. Actually I never finished it. I just skipped to the end.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews