May 4th, 2007
Review – Darkly Dreaming Dexter
Darkly Dreaming Dexter
by Jeff Lindsay
Dexter Morgan is a blood spatter technician for the Miami Police Department. Besides being an expert at his job Dexter is also a vigilante of sort. In his spare time, he hunts down serial killers and kills them. One could almost support Dexter in his hunt for justice except that there is a big problem. Dexter enjoys killing… and he enjoys it way too much. Dexter is, in fact, a serial killer who only kills evil people. He is a conscienceless sociopath who feels nothing for human beings but feels compelled to make them suffer. And he is the hero of the story. Dexter does everything he can to appear normal. He has a girlfriend that he treats well but he cares nothing for her. He has learned to look and act like any other person in Miami.
But sometimes trying to convince everyone he is normal forces Dexter to do things he might not otherwise do. Dexter’s sister, Deborah, is also in the Miami Police Department and she desperately wants to get out of Vice and into Homicide. When a series of brutal killings occur, she sees an opportunity to get recognized. She doesn’t know her brother is a serial killer but she does know that her brother sometimes seems to have an insight into the criminal mind and wants Dexter’s help. But this killer is something truly special… someone that Dexter is not prepared to go up against.
It’s hard to believe that a book that makes a hero of a serial killer could be so enthralling, humorous, and enjoyable but Jeff Lindsay has suceeded in creating a sympathetic sociopath. Writing the book in the first person is ingenious as it lets us see into the mind of Dexter and allows Dexter to talk to us and show us his self-deprecating, sarcastic humor. I could like Dexter (even if he could never actually care about another person) if it wasn’t for that little character quirk of occasionally letting The Dark Passenger, as he refers to his compulsion to kill, take control and drive him to unspeakable acts of cruelty.
My daughter told me about this book and she was right that it is amazingly good. After struggling through the Dante Club for weeks I finished this in three days and thoroughly enjoyed it. Lindsay keeps the story moving so fast that we forget that we are rooting for a serial killer. No, it is not going to win an award for literary genius but as a guilty pleasure it is a great read.
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