Cultural aspects

The story takes place in Miami, the state of Florida and a lot of places that are described can be found on a map, like South Beach, North Bay Village, names of streets, etc.

"In spite of living in Miami for most of her life, Rita still thought South Beach was glamorous."
"I moved up to 75 and roared past the turn for 79th Street Causeway, around the bend by the Publix Market..."

There are many descriptions of typical nature and scenery that help us to feel the location better.

"Full, fat, reddish moon, the night as light as day, the moonlight flooding down across the land and bringing joy, joy, joy. Bringing the full-throated call of the tropical night, the soft and wild voice of wind, roaring through the hairs on your arm, the hollow wail of starlight, bellow of the moonlight off the water."

And since Miami is a city situated on the Atlantic coast, Dexter likes to sail his boat to drive bad thoughts away.

"I took my boat out that night after work, to get away from Deb's questions and to sort through what I was feeling."


Author mentions many philosophical problems.
The main character reflects on the nature of human feelings and how sincere they are.
"I'm quite sure most people fake an awful lot of everyday human contact. I just fake all of it."


He also thinks about what's better for people who have incurable diseases.
Harry would do what was right, no matter how hard it was. But what did that mean in dying? Was it right to fight and hang on and make the rest of us suffer through the endless death, when death was coming no matter what Harry did? Or was it right to slip away gracefully and without a fuss?"

He also descibes unperfection of the judicial mechanism. 
"And so there it was. Case closed, justice done. It made a wonderfully ironic package; the appearance of danger and the lethal reality, so very different. Was I the only one who could see that Daryll Earl could not possibly be the killer? How many innocent people go to prison because of lack of evidence to defend them?"