Dearly Devoted Dexter

Jeff Lindsay

Lindsay's second (after Darkly Dreaming Dexter) Dexter novel continues with the story of America's most lovable serial killer, who also works as a blood splatter analyst for the Miami-Dade PD, and has come under the scrutiny of one of his co-workers just as he's about to finish up a two-for-one deal he discovered. As if that's not enough, he gets drawn into a particularly nasty (or admirable, if you're Dexter) case where the body is dismembered, but the victim is still alive when he's found. Better yet, the colleague of Dexter's who's been shadowing him has a connection to the case, as well.

While the mystery angle of the book is handled well, as is to be expected, Lindsay's characterization still suffers somewhat. A good deal of this can be put down to Dexter's seeming inability to know his own mind, but it doesn't help that every once in a while Dexter turns into a whiny, self-pitying prat. A bit less of that and a bit more soul-searching (wouldn't it be nice, just once, to meet a fictional serial killer with as much self-knowledge as, say, Richard Ramirez?) and Lindsay will really have something with this series; as it stands, it's still in the "potential" section of the store and waiting to really break out.