USA Today Review

'Dexter' delivers dark, lively thrills 
By Carol Memmot, USA TODAY

If a serial killer could have one good quality, what would it be? How about he kills only evil people?

"Protagonist Dexter describes himself as "above suspicion, beyond reproach and beneath contempt. A neat and polite monster, the boy next door."

That is the premise for Jeff Lindsay's Darkly Dreaming Dexter, a dark and devious debut novel about Dexter Morgan, the serial killer with a heart. A blood-spatter expert and police-lab geek in Miami, Dexter slices and dices bad guys during his time off.

Despite what he does in his spare time, there's something charming about Dexter, who describes himself as "above suspicion, beyond reproach and beneath contempt. A neat and polite monster, the boy next door." And how can you hate him knowing that the people he dispatches to the next life are deprived of their chance to kill innocent people?

Lindsay makes us dote on Dexter and worry how he got to be this way. Something terrible happened when he was a child. His foster father, Harry, a cop, alludes to it, sometimes asking Dexter whether he remembers anything that happened to him when he was 3. Dexter can't remember. Harry knows something the rest of us don't and isn't surprised when he discovers a teenage Dexter has begun killing things.

"I know you're a good kid," Harry tells Dexter. "But what happened to you when you were a little kid shaped you. ... It's going to make you want to kill. And you can't help that." But Harry has advice for Dexter: "Choose what ... or who ... you kill ... There are plenty of people who deserve it, Dex." Harry's words direct Dexter's life. The handsome, smart young man with the "clean, crisp outside" who takes care of his sister, a Miami vice cop, and who was devoted to his foster parents now rids the world of very bad people. His job with the Miami-Dade police gives him access to information about criminals who can feed his need to kill. But when a new serial killer's MO seems uncomfortably similar to Dexter's, he worries that the killer is taunting him or that maybe he's committing the killings and doesn't know it.

Lindsay's tale is daring and unexpectedly comedic. The writing is lively and the plot steps away from the common ground in which many thrillers are rooted. When it comes to light, the tragic incident in Dexter's past rolls over us like a nightmare from which we can't wake up. Darkly Dreaming Dexter occupies its own unique space in the thrill-kill genre. That Lindsay is finishing his second novel means the dark and dashing Dexter will live to dream again.

I agree with the author of this review. The most important thing that makes this book interesting and  distinguishes it from ordinary novels is a good mixture between drama and detective story which has a lot of suitable humour.

The main reason that makes this book so popular is the main character, "a serial killer with a heart". The fact that he is the narrator of the story makes people understand that he isn't so violent every single minute. He wears a mask that is rather hard to keep if you aren't clever enough or if you don't know how to control yourself. He has to consider every little thing he does for his secret not to be revealed. And the tragic incident of his childhood makes readers feel sorry for him and understand his motivation, reveals why he has become what he is now.

Another reason is the problem of fairness of the punishment that modern society has chosen for the criminals that is described in the book. I think this problem can't be solved at all because people are not the ones who should determine the weight of the crime. As the judicial system is imperfect a criminal can always find a way to avoid the punishment through bribes etc. And since almost all the countries (that call themselves civilized) have banned death penalty it seems unfair to people who suffered from the criminals who just got several years of prison for killing their relatives that can't be returned.