Birth of a Killer by Darren Shan tells the tale of Larten Crepsley, a young boy who is living in awful conditions, has to fight for his food, and has a horrible sorry excuse for a person as a foreman. One day at work, his foreman goes too far with his beatings and kills one of the few people Larten cares for. At that moment, something snaps in Larten and he kills his foreman sending him on the run for his life. He is not running long before he meets up with Seba, a vampire who takes Larten under his wing making him his assistant, changing Larten's life forever.

Birth of a Killer is a prequel to Shan's "Cirque Du Freak" series, so fans of the series may recognize some of the characters that made appearances in this book (Larten, Mr. Tall, etc...). One aspect of the book I wish the author elaborated more on was the details of the life of an assistant -the chapters would skip years if not decades of the boys life with little detail of his position of assistant. Now I will admit I had not read the series before, so those details could have been laid out in an earlier book.

I found the book to be entertaining at parts, good enough to finish, but not so much that I had to finish it in one night.