Darkly Dreaming Dexter: Book Review

The following review does NOT contain, egg, dairy, nuts, or spoilers.

My sister recently became very interested in Dexter, a TV show on Showtime. She doesn't watch TV but happened to see the DVDs in the bookstore. Following this most literary discovery of a TV show, she decided to read the novels they're based on as well. Since I haven't had much opportunity to go out recently, I asked her to leave the first one with me to read.

I knew the premise going in. A serial killer who kills serial killers. The idea reminded me vaguely of one of my favorite mangas, Death Note. Except I got the impression that, to some extent, at least, Dexter was meant to be more likable to the non-serial killing reader than Light Yagami. At the same time, he's also not exactly a crime-fighting vigilante. The book is written from Dexter's perspective and he's portrayed by himself as an emotionless person who is compelled to kill due to a traumatic experience as a child. Still, he does feel a deep fondness for his foster family, and thus lives by a code of killing laid out for him by his foster father.

I don't entirely buy this premise because I don't think one event, no matter how traumatic, can turn you into a serial killer. Otherwise, every single holocaust surviver would have been a serial killer. I don't think it's 100% nature, either though. I think it's a mix of a person's natural predisposition and the way they're nurtured. Still, I do think the theory is interesting. It posits a situation where people do not have control over their need to be killers, but they do, at least in Dexter's case, have control over who they kill.

The style of writing is quite good as contemporary American fiction goes. I wouldn't call it poetry, but I wouldn't call it Dan Brown bad either. My sister was annoyed by the frequent alliteration with the letter D, but that didn't really bother me. All in all, the major plot point struck a sour note with me, and I felt a couple major issues weren't entirely resolved at the end, but it was still intriguing and well-written enough for me to be interested in reading the next one.