by Dan Wells
I am not a Serial Killer, by Dan Wells, is the first novel in the John Cleaver horror series. This book tells the tale of a 15-year-old sociopath named John Wayne Cleaver. John is obsessed with serial killers; he understands and relates to them, seeing in them a reflection of his own homicidal urges. But John does not want to become a killer; in fact, he desperately wants to avoid it. And so, John follows a strict code of conduct he has created, intended to keep him from crossing the line and to keep "Mr. Monster" (i.e., his darker self) from taking over.
When a string of brutal murders begin to occur in his small home town, John suspects, with great excitement, that his town may actually have its very own serial killer. But as he begins to snoop around and investigate these killings more deeply, John soon discovers that something even more dark and deadly than a serial killer may be in town.
As the deaths continue and the evil grows, John is the only person who can recognize it for what it is, and he is the only person with a hope of stopping it. But in order to do so, he will have to break all his own codes of conduct, tearing down the walls that have kept Mr. Monster so well restrained. As John begins to remove these barriers and allow himself to engage in his forbidden, predatory behaviours, he begins to wonder: when this battle is over, will he be able to put Mr. Monster back in his cage? Or will the monster, once free, insist on staying that way?
I Am Not a Serial Killer, by Dan Wells, is an exciting horror-thriller novel, combining real-life horror with supernatural terror.
Fans of horror and thriller genres can enjoy this debut novel as either a book in the adult fiction section or a book on CD. The next title in the series, Mr. Monster, is also available in the library as a novel or a book on CD.
- reviewed by Teresa Taggart,
readers advisor at the
Prince George Public Library
I Don't Believe In Atheists
by Chris Hedges
Chris Hedges tells a little lie in the title of his book I Don't Believe In Atheists.
He does believe in them.
He devotes half of one page to them.
"An atheist who accepts an irredeemable and flawed human nature, as well as a morally neutral universe, who does not think the world can be perfected by human beings, who is not steeped in cultural arrogance and feelings of superiority, is intellectually honest. These atheists may not like the word sin, but they have accepted its reality."
Every other kind of atheist, according to Hedges, is as rigid and intolerant in his or her fundamental faith in the power of reason and science, as the religious fanatics they mock.
What Hedges really dislikes are fundamentalists of any stripe, whether theyare religious or scientific. It's the scientific fundamentalists he's concerned with here, particularly the famous ones like Christopher Hitchens, the author of God Is Not Great, and Richard Dawkins, the author of The God Delusion (both books are here in the library).
Hedges argues that these new atheists are, under the guise of reason and logic, playing a very old game that ends in persecution, violence and death.
They paint any kind of religious faith as irrational behaviour that needs to be weeded out of society.
Hedges throws the history book at these cruel atheists, noting that science and logic have been used as weapons in the past, from the French Revolution, to Communists in Russia, Nazis in Germany and the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, to justify mass slaughter for good intentions - everything will be perfect once we purify populations of their foolish beliefs.
This book is available at both branches of the Prince George Public Library, in the adult non-fiction section.
- reviewed by Neil Godbout, communications co-ordinator,
Prince George Public Library.
