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A KEVIN R. TIPPLE BOOK REVIEW: Darkly Dreaming Dexter: A Novel by Jeff Lindsay
There are few books that smack the reader around consistently throughout the book and after it is closed. This is one of those books.
Darkly Dreaming Dexter: A Novel By Jeff Lindsay Doubleday 2004 Hardback ISBN # 0-385-51123-X
"'I'm not all that deep, Rita," I said. I nudged the car into park.
"It's like, everything really is two ways, the way we all pretend it is and the way it really is. And you already know that and it's like a game for you.'" (Page 64)
For Dexter, everything really is a game and he is always playing at being human. Absent of all feelings, he mimics them and attempts to blend into society. By day he is a crime scene analyst specializing in blood splatter for the Miami police department. By night, every so often when conditions are just right, he goes out and kills. Not in a random way but in a specialized way by removing those from society that truly need killing. He helps make life just a little bit safer in Miami and in so doing keeps his own life orderly while making his "Dark Passenger" happy.
That is until another serial killer begins his own gruesome work. There is an artistic approach to the crime scenes involving dead hookers that Dexter likes and appreciates. After all, the man has talent and clearly has imagination. At the same time while his sister Deborah, a Miami police officer frequently on hooker detail assists in the investigation, there is something disturbing about the crime scenes. They speak to him in a way that almost seems familiar.
To say more would ruin this wonderfully disturbing novel. Dexter is both sarcastic in a laugh out loud way and chilling cold—often in the same sentence. His frequent observations on the human condition come from a figure who absent of human feelings and therefore sees himself as totally apart from everyone else. The fact that he is also very smart, knows it, and comments on that fact often gives rise to moments of hilarity followed by quick side trips into demented territory.
The read is complex and full of twisted turns that delve deep into dark recesses of Dexter's mind while rocketing the novel forward. The result is a quick 288 page novel in hardback that borders on madness and yet is downright funny most of the time despite the often gruesome subject matter.
Kevin R. Tipple © 2007 |