Journal of the dead - Jason Kersten

'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 closet 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 dehydration. 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.