Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1774 in Books
• Published on: 2005-07-27
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 275 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Meet Dexter Morgan, the chief protagonist of Darkly Dreaming Dexter. He's a highly respected lab technician specialising in blood spatter for the Miami Dade Police Department. He's a handsome, though reluctant, ladies' man. He's polite, says all the right things, and rarely draws attention to himself. He's also a sociopathic serial killer whose "Dark Passenger" drives him to commit the occasional dismemberment. Mind you, Dexter's the good guy in this story.

Adopted at the age of four after an unnamed tragedy left him orphaned, Dexter's learned, with help from his pragmatic policeman father, to channel his "gift", killing only those who deal in death themselves. But when a new serial killer starts working in Miami, staging elaborately grisly scenes that are, to Dexter, an obvious attempt at communication from one monster to another, the eponymous protagonist finds himself at a loss. Should he help his policewoman sister Deborah earn a promotion to the Homicide desk by finding the fiend? Or should he locate this new killer himself, so he can express his admiration for the other's "art"? Or is it possible that psycho Dexter himself, admittedly not the most balanced of fellows, is finally going completely insane and committing these messy crimes himself?

Despite his penchant for vivisection, it's hard not to like Dexter as his coldly logical personality struggles to emulate emotions he doesn't feel and to keep up his appearance as a caring, unremarkable human being. Debut author Jeff Lindsay's plot is tense and absorbing, but it's the voice of Dexter and his reactions to the other characters that make this one of the most original and highly recommended serial killer stories in a very long time. --Benjamin Reese, Amazon.com

Booklist
‘After finishing this debut, readers will have only one thing to say: wow! Oh boy, does Dexter make an impression.’

Review
'Lindsay applies the thumbscrew with witty relish and draws the reader in from the outset... Articulate and ghoulish, Dexter is one of a kind and his adventures never fail to entertain... Annoyingly clever.' (Maxim Jakubowski THE GUARDIAN )

'A psychopath with a sense of irony and even a vestigal conscience is a novelty and so is this tasteless but witty, entertaining romp.' (Suzanna Yager SUNDAY TELEGRAPH )

'Stylish, polished and very readable. Lindsay rattles off his story and does the job as professionally as Dexter does his.' (Andrea Henry DAILY MIRROR )

'A sleek black comedy' (Philip Oakes LITERARY REVIEW )

'In this debut novel, Lindsay has created many things - a mesmerising plot, stomach-turning gore, a fantastic read and the ultimate paradox, a serial killer you just can't help but love. It's the stuff dark dreams are made of.' (DAILY RECORD )

'At last a serial killer with an innovative variation... With a nice leavening of wit and macabre horror, Lindsay has written a memorable debut.' (MANCHESTER CITY LIFE )

'Beautifully written, witty and amusing... An interesting read, which is funny as well as bizarre.' (TANGLED WEB Bernard Knight )

'Part thriller, part police procedural and part black comedy - but the overall read is more than the sum of its parts.' (SUNDAY MERCURY )

'The best spine chiller this month has to be DARKLY DREAMING DEXTER, an excellent debut from Jeff Lindsay... A refreshing voice in the serial killer genre, it's a treat.' (THE BOOKSELLER )

'Articulate and ghoulish, Dexter is one of a kind and his adventures never fail to entertain... Annoyingly clever.' (Maxim Jakubowski THE GUARDIAN )

Customer Reviews

Why the criticism?
I, like many others reviewing this book, have watched the show first and then was so impressed with it, felt compelled to read the book. I haven't felt this eager to read a book in a long time and I wasn't disappointed. What I am disappointed with is the largely negative reviews here.

Everyone's entitled to their opinions but I felt some of them must have been reading a different book to myself. Ok, I will admit that the book is not as big as I was expecting but then I don't feel it needed to be. The book is full of humour and the characters are interesting.

Some characters, such as Angel Batista, are not seen as much in the book as they are in tv show, but other characters such as Vince Masuoka are seen more. The producers of the show decided to show more of Batista than Masuoka and that is their perogative. I thought the characterisation of Masouka was good and showed that perhaps Dexter could have a friend, or at least someone to connect with.

Perhaps the criticism that has puzzled me the most is the theory that the character of Dexter is not likeable enough in the book. Correct me if I'm wrong, but considering the self-mocking tone displayed in the book as written from Dexter's perspective, it left me feeling like that was the point: Dexter knows what he is, and what he is isn't suppoosed to be likeable.

His constant references to not being human make him an anti-hero, not someone to be admired and revered for being righteous. If people choose to like Dexter (which they admittedly do and I am one of them), it's because we choose to, not because we're supposed to.

True, as it is written from Dexter's point of view, there is the sense that we are supposed to sympathise with Dexter but, after all, he is still a serial killer, and is in his own admission, a man with no guilt response.

The story is a lot shorter than the tv show but then a tv show's job is take something like Dexter and add their own spin on it: it's the same with Hollywood movies; I urge anyone to read Stephen King's The Shining and then see Stanley Kubrick's version and tell me just how different it is.

The obvious difference is the character of LaGuerta. In the show, she is a stronger, more competent character, however in the book she is shown as someone not particularly intelligent but displaying a hard edge at points. The main difference regarding LaGuerta is something I won't go into for fear of ruining the book for those who haven't read it.

The book has a lot of quirky humour and the story, although short, is still very interesting and inventive. Some characters have more depth than others and some are very different from the tv show. What I will say, to finish, is this: if you've seen the tv show first, please be aware it is quite different to the tv show but that shouldn't become a criticism of the book.

Television producers jobs are to take a book or script and tailor it to their own needs: they are two completely different mediums and one shouldn't be criticised because of the other.

Dark, Funny and My First encounter with a Loveable Psychopath??!! (With one small moan at the end)
Dexter is a blood spatter analyst working closely with the Miami Police. However, in his spare time he kills people (but only those who have committed horrible crimes themselves.) In this novel prostitutes are being found mutilated and murdered around Miami, and once Dexter has got over his admiration for the killer's `work' he decides to help his sister (a cop) to catch him and get her a well-deserved promotion.

I think that I may have been lucky that by missing the recent television series, I have nothing to compare the novel to. The first person narration in this novel is what really makes it so great , I still find it difficult to comprehend that I really liked Dexter even knowing the horrible things that he does! I think I will also remember this book as being more graphically violent than it actually is, as Lindsay manages to suggest quite a lot and leaves your brain to fill in the gaps.

The only slight problem I have is that Dexter will only kill bad men and yet still admires the work of a killer who targets prostitutes. I know this is a work of fiction, but I am getting a little tired of prostitutes being regarded as inherently bad people and therefore fodder for serial killers. In such an imaginative novel, he could have done something better.

So near, and yet...
It really pains me to have to give this book less than five stars, because for most of the way Darkly Dreaming Dexter is a blistering, caustic, delirious and hugely entertaining novel that sweeps the reader up and carries you effortlessly along for the ride. However, in the closing stages the plot reverts to one too many over-used crime fiction staples which spoil the outstanding promise shown until that point. The damage is severe, but thankfully Dexter is such dazzling company before this that the weaknesses in the conclusion are not quite enough to bring the whole enterprise to its knees.

There is much to recommend this book before you get to the end, however. Firstly you must admire the originality of Jeff Lindsay’s undertaking: without ever shying away from what Dexter is, he gives us a serial killer who is not only human but also extremely likeable. There is something endearing in Dexter’s inability to understand emotion and the coldly clinical view of people that he takes as a result of this. That he simply accepts it as part of who he is, rather than lamenting it at great length, only makes him a more congenial narrator, as his cynicism, honesty and confusion are wonderful traits to observe; he never asks for sympathy and yet is still a surprisingly sympathetic character, especially as everything starts to unravel beneath him.

Lindsay’s use of back-story to explain Dexter’s beginnings is spare but effective, and the other characters are mostly effortlessly drawn with a great eye for detail – the observations that typify Captain Matthews and Vince Masouka in particular had me laughing out loud. The only real exception is Dexter’s sister, Deborah; we are assured on several occasions what a good cop she is, but she seems singularly unable to do anything on her own, running to Dexter every time any thinking is required. Granted, some of what Dexter comes up with is dependent on his own, uh, expertise, but his sister’s dependence on him to do her job for her grated with me. Thankfully, she is not around too frequently to spoil things.

Lindsay ties plot and character together with some truly outstanding writing, never losing sight of who Dexter is and what he is about; the fact that Dexter spends most of the novel at cross-purposes is also a lot of the fun here, and his own musings on the crimes being committed show uncommon bravery for a first time novelist. The book starts out of the gate so quickly that for the first 30 pages you are running to try and keep up, and Lindsay maintains a swift and effortless pace throughout as his prose veers joyously between the sublime (“Another huge new development was going to improve life for all of us by turning trees and animals into cement and old people from New Jersey”) and the delightfully ridiculous (“How bad could things be if my hair was neat?”).

All of which makes the flaws of the ending harder to bear, since Lindsay has proved himself considerably better than what he offers up. I’m not suggesting that there is an obvious better alternative, but the way it finishes feels rushed to me, as the predictability that he has staved off so well and for so long comes crashing in, leaving an unexpected sour taste after I closed the book. Lindsay is clearly a very gifted author, however, and on the strength of his creation here is most certainly a name to watch.