Darkly Dreaming Dexter (First Edition)

Jeff Lindsay

ISBN 10: 038551123X / ISBN 13: 9780385511230

Published by Doubleday (Random House), New York, 2004

About this Item

First printing, with full number line. A fine copy in a fine jacket. A clean copy with price ($22.95) intact on front flap. Comes with archival-quality jacket protector. Note: Slight spine slant on an otherwise beautiful copy. Basis for the hit TV show. F-2452. Seller Inventory # FLAHIVE-2452

Bibliographic Details

Title: Darkly Dreaming Dexter (First Edition)

Publisher: Doubleday (Random House), New York

Publication Date: 2004

Binding: Hardcover

Condition: Fine

Dust Jacket Condition: Fine

Edition: 1st Edition

About this title

Synopsis:

Hiding a secret life as an assassin while working as a murder analyst for the Miami police, Dexter Morgan is intrigued by the work of a new serial killer whose style mimics his own and who Morgan realizes is inviting him into a deadly competition. 40,000 first printing.

Review:

Meet Dexter Morgan, the chief protagonist of Darkly Dreaming Dexter. He's a highly respected lab technician specialising in blood spatter for the Miami Dade Police Department. He's a handsome, though reluctant, ladies' man. He's polite, says all the right things, and rarely draws attention to himself. He's also a sociopathic serial killer whose "Dark Passenger" drives him to commit the occasional dismemberment. Mind you, Dexter's the good guy in this story.

Adopted at the age of four after an unnamed tragedy left him orphaned, Dexter's learned, with help from his pragmatic policeman father, to channel his "gift", killing only those who deal in death themselves. But when a new serial killer starts working in Miami, staging elaborately grisly scenes that are, to Dexter, an obvious attempt at communication from one monster to another, the eponymous protagonist finds himself at a loss. Should he help his policewoman sister Deborah earn a promotion to the Homicide desk by finding the fiend? Or should he locate this new killer himself, so he can express his admiration for the other's "art"? Or is it possible that psycho Dexter himself, admittedly not the most balanced of fellows, is finally going completely insane and committing these messy crimes himself?

Despite his penchant for vivisection, it's hard not to like Dexter as his coldly logical personality struggles to emulate emotions he doesn't feel and to keep up his appearance as a caring, unremarkable human being. Debut author Jeff Lindsay's plot is tense and absorbing, but it's the voice of Dexter and his reactions to the other characters that make this one of the most original and highly recommended serial killer stories in a very long time. --Benjamin Reese, Amazon.com