REVIEW: I Don't Want to Kill You

Wells, D.  (2011).  I Don't Want to Kill You.  New York:  Tor Books.

320 pages.


Appetizer:  In the final installment of the I Am Not a Serial Killer series, John, a sociopathic mortician's son, is stalking women--all who have had a major change in their lives.  He's been letting some of his well-crafted rules (all designed to prevent him from becoming a serial killer) slip recently.  He's waiting for Nobody, the big bad demon he challenged at the end of Mr. Monster, to arrive in town.

When a famed serial killer named The Handyman seems to have come from Georgia, John knows that Nobody is at work and tries to profile the Handyman in the hopes of protecting the county.  But, John must also question some of his choices he makes as girls in town commit suicide:  Are these people worth protecting?  Could he could actually be a hero?  He knew innocent people would have to die for him to find the next demon after all.

John's rules of how to avoid becoming a serial killer slip even more when, a girl named Marci asks him out.  The daughter of a police officer, they begin to profile the killer and parts of John's personality that only him mom has seen before begin to show.  But with his mask slipping and his true nature revealed, will Nobody find him before he can find the demon?

I found I Don't Want to Kill You to be a fitting conclusion to this trilogy.  With touches of humor, I thought it was a little lighter and more enjoyable than the second book, Mr. Monster, which had gotten suuuuper dark.

There are some great twists in the story and some nice foils to John's character to provide some insights into who he is.

I did feel as though the book did leave itself open to another chapter in John Cleaver's story in the future.


Dinner Conversation:

"I didn't know Jenny Zeller very well.  Nobody did, really.  I guess that's why she killed herself." (p. 13)

"Yes, finding a killer is easy.  Finding someone before they kill is almost impossible.  And the worst part about that was the way it made me so much easier to find than the demon.  I'd already killed two people."  (p. 18)

"Thus it was that five days after the killing, when I'd analyzed the news coverage a hundred times, run out of leads, and was desperate for more information, the FBI delivered the corpse right to my door.
I have the best job in the world." (p. 33).

"Now that I was a real demon hunter, everything was different.  My dark side had a safe outlet, and my dreams at night were heroic tales of John the Conqueror, slaying all the dark things of the world--and if I enjoyed the slaying a little more than necessary, well, that was my right." (p. 52)

"I laughed, smiling thinly.  "The daughter of a cop and the son of a mortician:  teen crime fighters.  We're like a bad TV show."  (p. 98)


Tasty Rating:  !!!!