Most teenage boys would be plenty preoccupied with having their first real girlfriend. But John Wayne Cleaver is not most teenagers—unless most teenagers are clinically diagnosed sociopaths obsessed with serial killers, and have managed to use that obsession to help destroy demons.

In his conclusion to the trilogy begun in I Am Not a Serial Killer, Utah author Dan Wells follows John as he awaits the inevitable fallout from his direct challenge to yet another demon to come and get it. But he’s finding it harder than usual to piece together the motive when ritual killings begin in his town, perhaps distracted by the attentions of the most desirable girl in school.

With the same vivid, intense prose he brought to the earlier books, Wells crafts a thriller that doesn’t skimp on character, building to a surprising heartbreaking conclusion. If this is indeed John Wayne Cleaver’s literary farewell, Wells sends him out with a bang.

Dan Wells: I Don’t Want to Kill You @ Sam Weller’s Bookstore, 254 S. Main, 801-328-2586, March 29, 6 p.m., free. SamWellers.com