Darkly Dreaming Dexter (2004) is a novel by Jeff Lindsay, and is also a fun and fresh book about one of the most hackneyed topics in popular literature, the serial killer. So how does Lindsay keep it fresh? Dexter Morgan is a serial killer with a heart of gold, sort of. As a young lad he was adopted by a cop who saw the dark potential in Dexter and mentored him to use his urges for good (sort of) instead of evil.
Dexter has been taught to kill only people who deserve to be killed, such as child molesters and sadistic psychiatrists. As a blood-splatter analyst for the Miami Police Department, Dexter has the research skills and resources to dig deep to find people who are kill-worthy. As readers we find ourselves in the peculiar position of foregoing the First Commandment and whole heartedly agreeing with the choice of people whom Dexter chooses to eliminate. Dexter is judge, jury and executioner, wearing a face protector and carrying power tools with which to torture his victims before he ends the torment for all, with lots of plastic to make clean-up a snap. (Dexter is the Martha Stewart of serial killers.)
Dexter refers to his dark urges as a kind of persona whom he names "The Dark Passenger", a character in his imagination who goads him on and sometimes seems to take over. As a sociopath, Dexter often muses over how he pretends to be human and wears a mask. As humans (but hopefully not sociopaths) we can all relate to the idea of the social mask that we wear that conceals our true selves, darker feelings and all.
Sometimes, Jeff Lindsay resorts to cliché dialogue in Darkly Dreaming Dexter, but mostly does a top-notch job of writing from the first-person point of view of a serial killer. Dexter is sometimes a murderous poet, a part-time boyfriend with an asexual girlfriend, and a neat and meticulous killer.
In Darkly Dreaming Dexter, another serial killer in Miami is imitating the style of Dexter’s killing, and also engaging him in a weird tag team of death that has Dexter snagged from the first kill. Who will come out on top? Who else will join the body count of Dexter’s victims? Watch Dexter on Showtime starring the brilliant Michael C. Hall, and you can also get the sequel to Darkly Dreaming Dexter, which is Dearly Devoted Dexter. But wait, there's more – Dexter in the Dark should be out in paperback soon.
