I Don't Want to Kill You by Dan Wells

6th January 2011, Headline Book Publishing

320 pages, Paperback

Review Copy
Teen Thriller

Violence (some graphic) throughout, suicide, demons

Summary From Headline Book Publishing

Sixteen-year-old John Wayne Cleaver has always known he's different, but not because he only has one friend (and doesn't much like him) and not because he regularly helps out in his mother's mortuary. He's different because he recognizes the classic signs of an incipient serial killer in his own personality, and he's created a rigid set of rules to follow to keep his darker nature, the one he calls Mr Monster in check.
But John discovers it's the personality traits he so fears that put him in the best position to save the people of his town from a series of horrific and disturbing killers...

 The Mole's review:

John Cleaver is described as a sociopath and a minor point I would like to make is... I googled "sociopath" as I was not comfortable with this term and I read several articles on "authoritative" websites. I came to the conclusion that the guy may have some form of asperges or autism and this made much more sense. But let's get to the story.

John is obsessed with serial killers, or to be more accurate he's obsessed with killing demons. In the first two books in the series he has already killed demons but I have not read these. His mum and the police know of his record and respect but also suspect him of something but they don't know what. Living and working in the mortuary gives him the ability to examine any dead bodies intimately and so fuels his obsession.

Amidst all this another serial killer hits town and starts a killing spree. John, unable to have a normal boyfriend/girlfriend relationship, is friended by Marci and together they start to pursue the threads of the killings but before they find enough to lead to the killer John's previous "girlfriend" commits suicide. Are there too many suicides? How could they be linked to the serial killer? Can John do anything about it to stop the spree.

I have not read a book like this before and perhaps it is unique but I enjoyed it immensely. It will appeal to a very wide cross section of readers that aren't too squeamish but... there are plenty of deaths and lots of details!

An alternative book you might enjoy would be White Crow by Marcus Sedgwick