Dexter by Design

June 29, 2009
Lindsay doesn't always maintain the balance between farce and something more serious in his fourth thriller to feature Dexter Morgan (after Dexter in the Dark
). As fans of the hit Showtime TV series know, Dexter is a blood-splatter analyst for the Miami PD as well as a serial killer who targets killers who've evaded justice. When two eviscerated corpses turn up on a beach, Dexter investigates, as does his sister, Deborah, a sergeant with his department, who suffers serious injury after she's stabbed by a suspect, Alex Doncevic. Convinced Deborah's assailant is the person also responsible for the bodies on the beach, Dexter eliminates Doncevic, only to find that he's taken an innocent life. To Dexter's further dismay, someone begins posting videos of Doncevic's murder on YouTube. While the darkly witty Lindsay deserves credit for continuing to make imaginative use of his original concept, a contrived resolution disappoints.

Starred review from August 1, 2009
The Miami PD forensic tech who analyzes blood-spatter patterns of murder victims when he's not dispatching them himself (Dexter in the Dark, 2007, etc.) comes up against an equally formidable foe.

Back from his honeymoon in Paris, Dexter Morgan is ready to settle into a new routine: racing to crime scenes, snuggling with his bride Rita and indoctrinating her children as apprentice sociopaths. For a newly married man, though, Dexter's given little time to spend with his new family. Four corpses have turned up in disconcertingly rapid succession, each disfigured in wholesale ways only Dexter could appreciate. One torso, for example, is eviscerated and filled with fruit; another body cavity holds suntan lotion, sunglasses and a swimsuit magazine. Clearly, as Dexter realizes, the act of murder is subordinate to the ritual adornment of the corpses. But as he and his sister, Miami PD Sgt. Deborah Morgan, work their way down a list of the most likely suspects for such baroque misbehavior, the case blows up in their faces, sending Deborah to the hospital and dealing Dexter the first in a long series of setbacks. Even when Dexter, dispassionate as ever about Deborah but determined to get justice, thinks he's neutralized her assailant, he's still a step behind the killer. Only a masquerade as a Baptist minister and an encounter with a chilling piece of performance art will set the balance straight.

The best of Dexter's four adventures to date, the trademark mixture of amusement and horror complemented by a genuinely suspenseful plot.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

August 15, 2009
This fourth entry in the "Dexter" series (after "Dexter in the Dark") provides more of what our favorite killer's fans expectplenty of descriptive gore, a clever murderer to match wits with Dexter, and abundant doses of dark humor. When his police-officer sister is stabbed during the course of a homicide investigation into corpses being posed artistically around Miami, Dexter's desire to protect his familysurprisinglykicks in. But while Dexter hunts for his latest nemesis, the killer also turns the tables on our hero and goes on the offensive, leading to an inevitable clash. Dexter is funnier than ever, and the interactions he has with both his sister and the suspicious Sergeant Doakes offer plenty of opportunities for the humor to shine through. VERDICT The story is pretty simple, and there are no real surprises, but that doesn't make Lindsay's latest any less enjoyable. This will no doubt be another best seller, and with good reason. Fans of both the books and the Showtime TV series will eat it up.Craig Shufelt, Fort McMurray P.L., A.B.

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2009
Dexter Morgan, the Miami police department blood-spatter expert and part-time executioner, is now a happily married man. Well . . . married, anyway. Happy is one of those emotions real human beings have, so Dexter doesnt really get the hang of it, what with him being a monster and all. Upon his return from his Paris honeymoon, hes confronted with a particularly inventive killer, and he realizes that he, Dexter, the killer who kills other killers, has a new mission. Dexter is a brilliant creation, a monster who walks like a man, a homicidal maniac who only kills people who deserve it, a simulacrum of a human being who has had to learn how to fake his way through the intricacies of human interaction. There is a popular television series about the character, but a TV show cant capture the nuances of Lindsays writing, the subtleties of Dexters delightfully deranged mind. (It was truly heartwarming to realize that I had been missed, he tells us, and if only I had a heart, I am sure it would have been warmed.) Like a lightly comic version of Hannibal Lecter, Dexter is a genuinely memorable, disturbingly compelling antihero.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)

October 26, 2009
After a honeymoon that includes a trip to Paris to see an exhibit of self-mutilating art, Dexter—a blood-spatter expert for the Miami PD and a serial killer who hunts killers who have evaded justice—teams up with his sister, a Miami PD sergeant, to search for a killer with a taste for gruesome postmortem artistic displays. Nick Landrum delivers a solid reading that evokes the exterior plainness of Dexter while also revealing his sinister inner self. He makes the paradox of Dexter's personality believable, conveying the character's quotidian normalcy and the brooding and deliberate murderous instinct simmering below the surface. Distinct and consistent character voices keep the production enjoyable. A Doubleday hardcover (Reviews, June 29).