Darkly Dreaming Dexter (Paperback)

There is much to recommend this book before you get to the end, however. Firstly you must admire the originality of Jeff Lindsay’s undertaking: without ever shying away from what Dexter is, he gives us a serial killer who is not only human but also extremely likeable. There is something endearing in Dexter’s inability to understand emotion and the coldly clinical view of people that he takes as a result of this. That he simply accepts it as part of who he is, rather than lamenting it at great length, only makes him a more congenial narrator, as his cynicism, honesty and confusion are wonderful traits to observe; he never asks for sympathy and yet is still a surprisingly sympathetic character, especially as everything starts to unravel beneath him.

Lindsay’s use of back-story to explain Dexter’s beginnings is spare but effective, and the other characters are mostly effortlessly drawn with a great eye for detail – the observations that typify Captain Matthews and Vince Masouka in particular had me laughing out loud. The only real exception is Dexter’s sister, Deborah; we are assured on several occasions what a good cop she is, but she seems singularly unable to do anything on her own, running to Dexter every time any thinking is required. Granted, some of what Dexter comes up with is dependent on his own, uh, expertise, but his sister’s dependence on him to do her job for her grated with me. Thankfully, she is not around too frequently to spoil things.

Lindsay ties plot and character together with some truly outstanding writing, never losing sight of who Dexter is and what he is about; the fact that Dexter spends most of the novel at cross-purposes is also a lot of the fun here, and his own musings on the crimes being committed show uncommon bravery for a first time novelist. The book starts out of the gate so quickly that for the first 30 pages you are running to try and keep up, and Lindsay maintains a swift and effortless pace throughout as his prose veers joyously between the sublime (“Another huge new development was going to improve life for all of us by turning trees and animals into cement and old people from New Jersey”) and the delightfully ridiculous (“How bad could things be if my hair was neat?”).

All of which makes the flaws of the ending harder to bear, since Lindsay has proved himself considerably better than what he offers up. I’m not suggesting that there is an obvious better alternative, but the way it finishes feels rushed to me, as the predictability that he has staved off so well and for so long comes crashing in, leaving an unexpected sour taste after I closed the book. Lindsay is clearly a very gifted author, however, and on the strength of his creation here is most certainly a name to watch.