Darkly Dreaming Dexter
Jeff Lindsay

Meet Dexter Morgan, a polite wolf in sheep's clothing. He's handsome and charming, but something in his past has made him abide by a different set of rules. He's a serial killer whose one golden rule makes him immensely likeable: he only kills bad people. And his job as a blood splatter expert for the Miami police department puts him in the perfect position to identify his victims. But when a series of brutal murders bearing a striking similarity to his own style start turning up, Dexter is caught between being flattered and being frightened - of himself or some other fiend.

This is one of the books that I was able to get while exchanging another book of mine at a local Little Free Library. I'm glad I chose to give that a shot, because otherwise I don't think I ever would have read this novel, and that would have been a shame. In fact, I do believe I'll be getting the rest of this series through my local regular library.

While I have only seen the first season of the TV show Dexter and don't remember much about it, I do remember enough to know that this novel, while having the same plot, is better than the show. But then again, it's rare that the novel is not better than a TV or movie adaptation.

The story in this novel is engaging and the main characters are well fleshed out enough for the reader to have a visceral reaction to. Some are likeable, some are not, but the most interesting thing is that a serial killer is the one that is the most likeable and some of the police officers are the ones that are the least likeable.

If you've seen season one of the TV show Dexter, you'll already know the plot of this novel, but it's just done better in the book. There's more left to the imagination and I think you can get deeper into the mind of the character with the novel (which happens to be written in the first person) than with just watching a television show.

While this is a novel that is situated to an adult audience, I would indeed recommend it.

My rating: Four out of five snails.