Darkly Dreaming Dexter

Title: Darkly Dreaming Dexter

Author: Jeff Lindsay

Number of pages: 275

Started: 26 November 2012

Finished: 30 November 2012

Opening words:

Moon.  Glorious moon. Full, fat, reddish moon, the night as light as day, the moonlight flooding down across the land and bringing joy, joy, joy. Bringing too the full-throated call of the tropical night, the soft and wild voice of the wind roaring through the hairs on your arm, the hollow wail of starlight, the teeth-grinding bellow of the moonlight off the water.

All calling to the Need. Oh, the symphonic shriek of the thousand hiding voices, the cry of the Need inside, the entity, the silent watcher, the cold quiet thing, the one that laughs, the Moondancer. The me that was not-me, the thing that mocked and laughed and came calling with its hunger. With the Need. And the Need was very strong now, very careful cold coiled creeping crackly cocked and ready, very strong, very much ready now—and still it waited and watched, and it made me wait and watch.

Plot summary:

Dexter Morgan isn't exactly the kind of man you'd bring home to your mum. At heart, he's the perfect gentleman: he has a shy girlfriend, and seems to lead a quiet, normal life bordering on the mundane. Despite the fact that he can't stand the sight of blood, he works as a blood-spatter analyst for the Miami police.

But Dexter also has a secret hobby: he is an accomplished serial killer. So far, he's killed 36 people and has never been caught because he knows exactly how to hide the evidence. And while that may lead some people to assume he's not such a nice guy, he tempers his insatiable hunger for brutality by only killing the bad guys.

However, Dexter's well-organised life is suddenly disrupted when a second, much more visible serial killer appears in Miami. Intrigued that the other killer favours a style similar to his own, Dexter soon realises that the mysterious new arrival is not simply invading his turf but offering him a direct invitation to 'come out and play'...

What I thought:

I am still undecided what I thought of this novel.  It is the tale of a serial killer, who uses an “ethical system” to identify his victims.  I found the book somewhat sinister, which is perhaps unsurprising given the subject matter, but there was a part of me that often wondered whether I really wanted to be inside the mind of a serial killer.  I didn’t find it a very pleasant place to be. 

This was actually a fairly light and easy-going read, despite what I had just said.  But I felt that it came from a place that I did not find entirely comfortable.  By the end I found that I liked the book more, but I am yet to decide whether I will read another in the series.