Book Review: Dearly Devoted Dexter by Jeff Lindsay

I started reading this series primarily because the premise of the television show intrigued me – a serial killer that kills bad guys. Even better, he’s a blood technician for the police department by day. I wanted to watch the show, but I try to always read the book first before seeing a show or movie that inspired it.

I enjoyed Darkly Dreaming Dexter, the first book in the series, even though the constant alliteration annoyed me. The character was interesting and the opening scene dives right in with Dexter killing a priest that’s been abusing and killing children. We meet Dexter’s sister Debra, also a cop. Dexter even has a girlfriend – despite not having any human emotions, he knows he needs to keep up a normal life to avoid being caught.

In Dearly Devoted Dexter, Dexter is brought onto a case where the bad guy is leaving his victims completely dismembered but still alive. While trying to help Deb solve the case, Dexter’s also trying to avoid the suspicion of Detective Doakes, a fellow Miami police officer. Doakes knows there’s something not quite right with Dexter and starts following him everywhere. This leaves Dexter without a way to let his Dark Passenger play, and instead finds him drinking beers on Rita’s couch for most of the book.

I didn’t enjoy Dearly Devoted as much as I enjoyed Darkly Dreaming. I hadn’t noticed in the first book, but the author feels the need to constantly remind us that Dexter doesn’t feel human emotions like the rest of us. Every single time there’s a moment where a normal person would know what to say or know how to act, he feels the need to have Dexter ponder his lack of normality before acting upon his conclusion. The first two or three times it’s not so odd – after all, it’s a sequel so it’s appropriate to remind the reader of the character’s traits. The tenth time and after, however, it gets a bit tedious. It’s also a little disappointing, seeing how short the book is to begin with and how much shorter it would have been had the author not added all these superfluous reminders.

The story itself is mildly interesting. Dexter spends most of his time hunting the official bad guy instead of going after other bad guys in his own special way. In fact, it felt like Dexter had been neutered. I don’t read the books to read about his police work – I read the books to read about Dexter killing horrible people. This book had it all backwards.

I got the book free from PaperBackSwap.com, so I can’t complain too much. It’s a fast read and it did reveal some interesting things about Dexter’s so-called personal life. It will be interesting to see those play out over the next novel. However, I can say with all certainty that I’ll never re-read Dearly Devoted Dexter.

Dearly Devoted Dexter is available on Kindle or in paperback.