Dan Wells’ debut novel deals with John Wayne Cleaver, a disaffected teenage boy living somewhere in the Midwest with his mother, a mortician by trade, and dealing with both the absence of his father and an unreliable sister. Also, he’s a diagnosed sociopath who visits a therapist once a week.  Growing up around dead people has had an effect on John, who loves the process of embalming (described in lavish and well-researched detail by Wells), and is fascinated with serial killers.  He has one friend, another outcast named Max, who he keeps around in attempt to fool the world into thinking he’s normal. He’s seemingly incapable of empathy and is struggling with his natural instinct to kill for pleasure.

And then something happens — people in town start dying in grotesque ways.  It is clear that  serial killer has taken up residence in town, and John commits himself to not only uncovering the killer’s identity, but also stopping him.  Like fellow literary psycho Dexter Morgan, John believes that he can unleash his inner monster if it’s in the service of stopping another killer.  But what happens when the killer is not what he seems — when there’s more to him than John suspects?  That he kills for a reason John is virtually incapable of understanding. A reason that ultimately causes John to question who the real monster is — the killer, or himself?

In many ways I am reminded of another supernatural novel set in a snowy environment, featuring a disaffected teenage boy with psycopathic tendencies — the excellent Swedish Vampire novel, Let the Right One In. And although it doesn’t have that book’s amazing emotional core, but it shares Let the Right One In‘s mixing of mundane life with elements of horror and insanity.

I Am Not a Serial Killer is a relatively short book, but does an excellent job of establishing John and his inner struggle. It has an unexpected, though welcome fantasy element, and although it can be easily pigeon-holed as a teenage Dexter, it only shares the same concept.  Wells does different things than one might expect.  It is not perfect, however — John’s first person narration sometimes rings false, with John using words and terminology a teenage boy would not use.  At times, I found myself taken out of the otherwise engaging narrative due to certain expressions and phrases not ringing true.  That said, it is an extremely promising first novel and establishes Dan Wells as a writer to watch.  I’m not sure that I agree with the publisher’s decision to market it as young adult fiction given some of the themes it deals with — but all and all, it is an enjoyable read and well worth your time.