Hello, my name is John WayneCleaver and I am not a serial killer. However, I find serial killers to be fascinating. And I also have some similarities to serial killers. Like the fact that I share all three traits of the Macdonald Triad like 95% of all other serial killers. I'm also fascinated by death and corpses, but since I'm a skilled mortician that works in the town mortuary what did you expect? I'm also fifteen years old, and I've been diagnosed as a sociopath. And I'm a loner that has a tough time making friends. It almost seems as if fate has decided that I should become a serial killer. Well Screw Destiny, I am not a serial killer!

See also the sequels, Mr. Monster and I Don't Want to Kill You.

• Adults Are Useless: Played straight in that John is the only one to discover who the serial killer is, averted in that the psychologist is shown to be somewhat helpful.
• Anti-Hero: John's rules are in place specifically to keep him from becoming something like this.
• Ascended Demon - John tries to be good. Really.
  • more literal in the case of the actual demon, who gave up being one in order to and only went back to killing because .
• Ax Crazy: Specifically averted. John makes a point of explaining that a random murder is different from a serial killing.
• Cassandra Truth: John thinks that no one would believe him if he told people the truth that
• Deadpan Snarker: So very much. John is deadpan pretty much all the time anyway, and he has an extremely developed sense of humor. Expect him to say something like this at least once every page.
• Disappeared Dad: John's father.
• Easter Egg: John is studying Beowulf and Grendel in english class.
• Enemy Within - John's dark side, the side that wishes to kill everyone. John's rules are there to hide this, but it's always there...
• Even Evil Has Standards - He stalks, He maims, but patting dogs? Never.
• The Film of the Book: Possibly.
• Freak-Out
• Genre Shift: The genre shifts from a psychological character study to a midway through the story when .
  • Though the shift is explicetly foreshadowed when in the first quarter of the book, John casually says to the reader
• Heroic Willpower - John, being the protagonist of our story, has of course this virtue. No matter how much he wants to kill people, his massive will to be good is just too strong. .
• He Who Fights Monsters:
• I Did What I Had to Do - When trying to kill a demon, some things must be done sacrifices - - must be made...
• Loners Are Freaks: John tries desperately to avert this so he befriends the other loner in the school, Max Bowen.
• The Main Characters Do Everything - Although the author does give a reason, it's very convenient that John is capable of performing his own autopsies and such.
• Meaningful Name: Subverted. John Wayne Gacy was a famous serial killer, and you might think John Wayne Cleaver is named after him- but you'd be wrong. He's actually named after John Wayne the Western actor.
  • Whether this one was intended or not, there was also an Australian serial killer named John Wayne Glover, which ends up as a much closer phonetic match to Cleaver.
• Moment Killer - It was John's fault really ; this scene also includes an example of How Much Did You Hear?
  • Though to be fair, Rob Anders was asking for it.
• Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant: John
• Nothing Exciting Ever Happens Here: The first murder is specifically said by the main character to be the most exciting thing he's ever seen happen in Clayton County.
• Parental Substitute: John's therapist, Ben Neblin, kinda acts as a replacement for John's absent father. So does Mr. Crowley.
• Police Are Useless: Played straight but justified, John does tell the police but it doesn't turn out well.
• Psychological Horror - It's not just blood and gore people. It's so much more than that...
• Reluctant Psycho - Guess who?
• Short Run in Peru: The book came out in the UK, Germany and Taiwan before coming out in the US April 2010.
• Sociopathic Hero - This one speaks for itself.
• Stalker with a Crush: John stalks for most of the book.
• This Is My Story - Most first-person stories carry this trope. It's inevitable really. See the book's blurb above for example.
• This Is Your Brain on Evil
• The Watson - John's 'friend' Max is really only there to fill in the audience by asking stupid questions.
• Will They or Won't They? - Brooke clearly likes John, and John clearly likes her. Hence the stalking.
• You Are Grounded: