Disturbing and a little disappointing

Darkly Dreaming Dexter, by Jeff Lindsay

Paperback: 288 pages

Publisher: Vintage; Reprint edition (Sep 19 2006)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0307277887

ISBN-13: 978-0307277886

 

 

 

SPOILER ALERT—If you haven’t seen the first season of Dexter, go do that. Then come  back. Not watching it just isn’t an option.

If you have seen it, and plan to read the book, go do that. Then come back.

If you have read the book, or aren’t planning to, continue reading.

Normally I wouldn’t start off a post directed at people who either have read the book or aren’t planning to, but this is a unique situation. Dexter fans are die-hards and purists (fans of the TV series, that is) and I know more than a few who won’t touch the books because of it.

And while I’m obviously a huge book worm and proponent of reading the book over seeing the movie/TV series/miniseries (and btw, any fans of Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett should watch the miniseries. I haven’t quite finished it but it’s excellent!) there are a few exceptions to that rule, including anything that Nicholas Sparks ever wrote that was made into a movie (The Notebook, Nights in Rodanthe, etc.)

I’m a huge Dexter fan who was curious about the books that started it all. Dexter is a blood spatter analyst for the Miami Metro Police Department. He spends his free time with his foster sister, Deborah, or his girlfriend, Rita, and her two children. He enjoys his work. He’s also a serial killer with a strict code of ethics about who he can and cannot kill, meaning he disposes of murderers and the occasional pedophile. He enjoys this work also.

The Dexter of Lindsay’s book is a little darker and less in control of his urges, if that’s possible. I found him less likable and more volatile. In the book, Deb doesn’t date the Ice Truck Killer, which was an awesome plot twist in the TV series, but the killer does kidnap her. Dexter finds her in one of the shipping containers we know so well from the show as the scene of Dexter’s mother’s demise. When the Ice Truck Killer, here known as Brian (I can’t remember what his name was on the show) has Deb tied up on the table and is asking Dex to kill her and strengthen their bond as brothers, Dexter is actually TORN. This isn’t the Dexter I know and love! His urges to kill people don’t extend beyond jailbird scum, torturers, rapists and men who kill innocent people!

So while Dexter’s standing over his sister’s body, debating with himself about whether or not to kill her, the chapter ends. The last chapter opens with a funeral with Dexter lamenting having treated his sister so terribly, leaving the reader to believe he’s actually killed her (hey, I’d read that the plot diverged from the TV show, but didn’t think it’d go THAT far) when we find out it’s actually Lieutenant LaGuerta who’s died, the same one we know and hate from the TV series. The one in the book is still beautiful, well-dressed and ambitious, but made out to be more sexually-charged (and attracted to Dexter??) and not a great detective.

I do love Dexter’s little musings to himself and the fact that the alliteration of the letter D continues throughout the book. That shouldn’t be so important, but it works. His constant perkiness and attempts at behaving “normally” are amusing. I think, though, if I’d read the book without knowing anything beforehand, I’d probably assume Dexter was an alien or some other foreign life form, so insistent is he that he isn’t human and must learn how to act human. I would have thought, what are you then?

All in all, it didn’t really leave me wanting more. I think I’ll stick with the TV show, thanks. Kudos to Jeff Lindsay for creating such a unique and fascinating character though. Maybe in the future I’ll read the next one, once I get down to the bottom of my to-be-read pile (HA!).