My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Many thanks to CrimeWave Press and the author for a chance to read and review this book. All opinions are expressed voluntarily.



“The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.”
― Albert Einstein

Death Sentences is a major triumph for the author Michael Zimecki, a book that makes one think long and hard about condemning a person. I am worried that I wouldn’t be able to do full justice to this gem of a book but am gonna try. It’s not often that you feel so utterly sorry for a gunman who goes into a rampage, I think the author has succeeded wonderfully in making a reader sit up and notice the turmoil and tragedy that goes into making a monster who shows no remorse in killing innocents.


As individuals we have all been there, reports of a mass shooting, one gunman going berserk, and all that we are left with are judgments and the devastation to the families affected by the trauma. Honestly, I doubt if anyone of us would ever sit and think about the trigger that could have caused this individual to storm thru a place and be a machine intent only on “KILL, KILL, and KILL”.


Michael Zimecki writes the story of Peter “Pop” Popovich, whose thoughts and perspectives get influenced by the people he looks up to and also the media which cause so much damage to individuals who are unable to filter thru the lies and evasions sometimes propagated by the politicos. There’s a gradual decline in his rationality and reasoning as every incident seems to aggravate the poison inside his mind.

“Whoever controls the media, controls the mind”
― Jim Morrison

There is an underlying mockery to the writing that makes reading this quite easy to follow even with the heavy topics being discussed. My only difficulty was that as a non-US citizen, the details of the failing political and economical system in the country were a trifle overwhelming but the emotions that cause Pop’s deterioration are conveyed beautifully.

Recommended for readers who love books that make you think!

This review is published in my blog https://rainnbooks.com/; Amazon India, Goodreads, and Twitter.

Death Sentences – A Personal Account of Mass Murder

Peter “Pop” Popovich is a 24-year-old unemployed glazier, anti-Semite and white supremacist who is pushed over the edge by his chaotic mother, his unresponsive lover, an uncaring stepfather and a right-wing hate machine that tells him liberals want to take away his guns and his liberty. While he waits to be executed for his crimes, “Pop” squibs sentences, whole paragraphs, a novel about life on Death Row in which he reprises the life that landed him there.
Death Sentences is loosely based on an incident in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in April 2009, when a lone gunman, convinced that the government was coming to take away his guns, had a four-hour standoff with police. This explosive novel, reminiscent of the works of Ed Bunker and Charles Bukowski, is a hellish story from the American underclass, its disenfranchised characters long abandoned by government and society and prone to constant failure and excessive violence. Gripping, personal, cruel and hilarious in turn, Death Sentences gets right under your skin.