Journal of the Dead: an Extraordinary True-life Tale of Adventure, Friendship and Lost Dreams

by JasonKersten (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2002

  $3.69

  'Sunday. I Killed And Buried My Best Friend Today'. It would be one last youthful journey. A classic road trip across America. This was the Kerouac-style dream of Raffi Kodakian and his closest friend David Coughlin. The trip was never completed. Within weeks, David Coughlin was dead, killed by his friend, apparently as an act of mercy, after being lost in a desert for days and suffering from extreme dehydratin. But soon questions began to be asked. Stories of Kodakian's violent temper began to emerge. Kodakian's girlfriend had been very close to Coughlin. How did they get lost in a desert canyon which thousands of other visitors had managed to navigate. And how could a young man kill his best friend, even in mercy? The pair kept a journal that they wrote in, right up to the end, extracts from which are reproduced in the book, offering clues to what really happened to the pair during their missing days in the desert. Kodakian is the only person who knows for certain - and he was eventually charged with murder. The result of the court case is the thrilling denouement to this extraordinary book.

• Used

  Paperback
  2004

  $4.06

  An extraordinary story of adventure, friendship, death, and judgement. Two friends live out their last youthful adventure Kerouac-style driving across the USA. The journey ends in tragedy, one friend dying at the hands of the other. Lost and wandering in the devastating heat of the desert, Raffi Kodikian kills the dehydrated David Coughlin, insisting it is an act of mercy. The small town trial that follows acts as a linch-pin for the narrative, bringing up many of the questions and themes that electrified readers of To Kill A Mockingbird. The characterisation is wonderful; evidence is presented with a detached clarity reminiscent of Perfect Storm, and there are also actual extracts from the boys' journal.