Fear
the darkness within…
John Wayne Cleaver is dangerous, and he knows
it. He’s spent his life doing his best not to live up to his potential.
He’s obsessed with serial killers
but really doesn’t want to become one. So, for his own sake, and the safety of
those around him, he lives by rigid rules he’s written for himself, practicing
normal life as if it were a private religion that could save him from
damnation.
Dead bodies are normal to John. He
likes them, actually. They don’t demand or expect the empathy he’s unable to
offer. Perhaps that’s what gives him the objectivity to recognize that there’s
something different about the body the police have just found behind the
Wash-n-Dry Laundromat – and to appreciate what the difference means.
Now, for the first time, John has to
confront a danger outside himself, a threat he can’t control, a menace to
everything and everyone he would love, if only he could.
Review:
The book starts off with 15 year-old
John Wayne Cleaver (named for the actor, not the serial killer) attempting to
keep control of his darker thoughts and lack of emotions. We are allowed inside
the mind of a teenage sociopath, to see his view of the town he lives in and
the people he comes in contact with on a daily basis. Even more importantly,
his view of his own mind and why he does (or does not) do the things he does. But
with murders piling up in his sleepy little town, the story soon becomes a cat-and-mouse
chase as he tries to first find and then take down a killer no one else would
believe in, let alone could imagine.
There were parts of this book where
I found John pleasant and, despite his self-diagnosis of sociopathy, a normal
teenage boy. Then there were times when he downright scared the hell out of me.
In one scene he is holding a knife and threatening his mother, and he admits to
himself that it feels good so he keeps doing it. The scene was nail-biting and
page-turning.
As I began this book I thought what
a great movie it would make, but as I got further in I realized that no, it is
much better off in book form. A movie won’t show us inside John’s head like the
written word does – his thoughts of serial killers and killing and sociopaths
would be lost in the translation to film and that would be a loss to the story.
I’m on my way to get part two of the
trilogy, Mr. Monster, and have
claimed “Let’s hope the fan doesn’t give out on us” as my new catch-phrase. As
you read the book, you’ll understand why.
Favorite
Quote:
“The project I did last year was on Jeffrey
Dahmer,” I said. “He was a cannibal who kept severed heads in his freezer.”
“I remember now,” said Max, his eyes
darkening. “Your posters gave me nightmares. That was boss.”
“Nightmares are nothing,” I said. “Those
posters gave me a therapist.”
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