More vocabulary tasks

madcap - сумасбродный (amusingly eccentric, impulsive, reckless)
"Oh, what a madcap little moster I had been."

sophomore - второй курс, второкурсник (a second-year college or high school student)
puddinghead - болван, олух (a stupid person, a fool)
"At nineteen, I certainly didn't know the answer, although I already knew more about death than most of the other puddingheads in my sophomore class at the University of Miami."

trail off - умолкать, затихать (to become silent, to stop)
"He thinks, um..., I started and then trailed off."

naïveté - наивность (naivety, innocence)
"And to be truthful, I couldn't think of anything to say to Deb's incredible naïveté either."

ulterior - скрытый (something that is not revealed; hidden)
beef up - укреплять, усиливать (increase, strengthen, improve)
"I admit I had a minor ulterior motive in heading for the office so early and I beefed it up by stopping for pastries."

gruesome - ужасный, отвратительный (grisly, extremely unpleasant, ghastly)
"I had been on the scene of hundreds of murders, many of them so gruesome and savage that they shocked even me."

Some vocabulary tasks

yammer - кричать, говорить без умолку
"...the small irresistible voice yammering in my ear would have made me stop everything..."

rascal - мошенник, плут
"He was up to no good again, the rascal."

nudge - 1) зд. медленно въезжать 2) толкать локтем
"I nudged my car into a parking place over the cruise ship office..."

stutter - запинаться, заикаться
"Rita's observation was so unexpected I couldn't even stutter for a minute."

tattered - разорванный в клочья
amid - среди
"...the start of the day amid the last tattered pieces of dream."

scowl - хмуриться, бросить сердитый взгляд
"Doakes slouched back in his chair with a last scowl at me."

insight - озарение, проницательность
"Oh, just a guess. Not a real insight, I'm afraid."

Reasons to take this book.

The most interesting fact is that the book is written in first person and the main character is a serial killer. A detective story the narrator of which is a serial killer is quite extraordinary these days.  It's always exciting to read a book or watch a movie when a villain stands in the first place. But though Dexter kills people he doesn't seem so bad when you're reading the book, he looks like an ordinary man. The character is written very properly, we understand the way he thinks from the first pages. He works as a blood pattern analyst in Miami Police, every day he helps to catch killers and maniacs, he has a stepsister Deborah and a girlfriend Rita he loves, he likes children... But something in his past made him empty inside, he can't feel anything and has to fake all the emotions. And he's good at it, nobody ever suspected him of anything bad, he is a "good guy" for everyone. None of them know about the demon that hides inside him.

And this is the first problem that author describes in this book: "Нow many people around us are faking their emotions when they are in the street or at work?" A lot of them. They pretend to be friendly or happy for their own purposes, for example not to offend people around them, to get a promotion, to make their life easier etc.

Another problem that is mentioned is related to the Code of Dexter that his stepfather, a policeman, taught him: to kill only "bad" people, like serial killers who got out of jail by mistake or because of a law loophole and who won't change. Dexter can't stop killing, something inside him makes him do it, so his father tried to secure ordinary people by directing him to the criminals. The second problem that the author describes is about the equivalence of human lives. "Is the life of a killer equal to a life of an ordinary man?" - that is the question he asks. "Can human judge who's to live and who's to die?"

This book will be interesting to those who like detective stories and thrillers. In addition the main character has a strong personality so people who like psychological immersion would enjoy it too.

The book I chose.

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