Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay
I started tuning into the TV series Dexter when it was partway through the first season, and I immediately liked it – so much so that I sought out the novel on which it is based. The premise is this: Dexter Morgan works for the police as a blood-spatter analyst. Under the surface, he is a sociopath, who has learned to hide it well. In fact, he has killed many times, but only according to a strict code handed down to him by his now-dead stepfather Harry. Harry, being an experienced cop, knew what Dexter was from a very early age. And so he did everything in his power to keep his step-son from ended up in the electric chair one day. He taught him to control his murderous urges, to kill only under strict circumstances, and only those who deserved to die. And so, adult Dexter works for the police, covertly solving unsolved crimes in his own special way. And the body count rises.
It’s bizarre, right? And that’s part of the attraction. No one’s written a book quite like this. It’s a similar attraction with the likes of Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange, which puts an even worse bad guy in the driving seat of the story. But is Dexter a bad guy? Sort of. In one sense he’s a vigilante hero, but he’s still a guy with a serious dark side who comes way too close to murdering the innocent for comfort. He also treats people close to him badly, seeing his girlfriend as a wardrobe accessory that helps him blend into the human race. For me, the attraction of the novel is in how Dexter deals with being an outsider. It’s something every geek can relate to. He’s different – unnacceptable. He must do a degree of acting to live, and he hates having to do it. Inside he has a longing to be like others, but senses that he never will be. On some level it’s possible to push aside the fact that he’s a murderer and simply relate to his experience. Dexter is also a story about the consequences of shame and guilt. Even though he feels neither, he is still burdened with the need to keep secrets from the world. Anyone can relate to this. I mean, we all have things we don’t want others to know, right?
Dexter is, however, a bit of a walking contradiction. He insists that he is incapable of feeling anything, and yet over the course of the story we see him going through all sorts of emotions – just not in a typically well-adjusted human fashion. The overall story concerns another serial killer on the rampage, one who has eluded the police – and one who leaves special secret messages that are just for Dexter. Somehow the mysterious killer knows more than anyone should about Dexter’s true nature. It’s worth noting that while the book and season 1 of the series tell the same story, the series expands on it a great deal and packs some surprises into the final episodes that those who have read the book will enjoy. The two do not end the same way.
Ultimately, the explanation for why Dexter is the way he is turns out to be farcical: a single traumatic event in his life made him a psychopath. I don’t buy it. In fact, the whole idea of romanticising a sociopath can ultimately be no more than a fascinating fairytale – and possibly a dangerous one. Hey, I can kill people and still be cool!
In the epilogue, the story seems to lose direction entirely, with Dexter promising to kill someone on far shakier grounds than the Code of Harry would allow. It’s rare that I prefer an adaptation to an original, but this time the TV series gets my vote. The TV Dexter character wasn’t as dislikable, or contradictory, as the Dexter in the book. I doubt I’ll be back for the written sequel, Dearly Devoted Dexter, but I’m eager to watch season 2 (which is not an adaptation of the second novel). My continuing interest might sound hypocritical, but I’m too fascinated by the character to write him off just yet.
This was an enjoyable, original page-turner for most of its length, losing its way towards the end. There are currently four Dexter books in print.

There’s no shortage of stories where the population goes mad in one way or another, although to be fair, I’m reminiscing mainly about movies. George A. Romero’s The Crazies is the earliest one I remember, although you could argue that Night of the Living Dead and its many imitators is essentially the same idea, even if the antagonists do lumber about like arthritic pensioners. Invaders from Mars and Invasion of the Body Snatchers are also variations on the core theme, which is: everyone has changed; everyone is a threat; it’s survival of the few against against an uncountable enemy. And this happens to be one of my favourite themes.
I read James Herbert regularly as a teenager, and hardly ever after that. My one regret between then and now is that I never read Domain, partly because it was the third book in a trilogy of which I had read the first two (The Rats and Lair), and partly because the book belongs to my favourite sub-genre: post apocalypse.
Robert Neville is the last man on earth. He is the sole survivor of a mysterious plague that hasn’t so much wiped out humanity as changed it. By day, the city belongs to him. He is, for all practical purposes, completely alone – free to roam the concrete jungle, foraging for food supplies, equipment for his house, and entertainment to quell the loneliness. But come nightfall, they come out.
This is the third book in the Odd Thomas series. To recap, Odd is a young man with the ability to see the spirits of the dead who have declined, for one reason or another, to move on. He also sees shadow-like creatures called “bodachs.” Their arrival is always the sign that a major calamity is about to befall the area – something that will result in numerous deaths. In the past, the presence of the bodachs has given Odd enough of a heads-up to prevent major tragedy unfolding. Odd’s third ability is what he calls “psychic magnetism,” the ability to intuitively track down a person just by thinking about them.
Another enjoyable volume in The Walking Dead saga, although not quite on par with the first one. For me, there was far too much dialogue. Some frames had speech bubbles that were overloaded, the characters constantly pausing to express their feelings about life in the wake of the apocalypse. I get that the author wants to tell a story with emotion as well as action, but there’s such a thing as overkill. And frankly, we’ve heard it all before, and more succinctly, in George Romero’s movies.
This is the story of a town, King’s infamous Derry, under seige by a malevolent entity that often manifests itself as a clown. Only children can see it (rather, It) – something to do with a child’s open-mindedness. To grown-ups, Derry is a normal town, but to a particular group of kids (known as the Losers’ Club), Derry is the feeding ground of a monster that lives in the sewers. These children – Bill, Richie, Eddie, Stan, Ben, Mike and Beverly – must do battle, to end the terror that stalks their town. Worse still, in later life they learn that their efforts back in 1957 were incomplete. It is back with a vengeance, determined to avenge Itself. Bill has his own personal axe to grind: he knows that It is responsible for the death of his younger brother George, while George sought to retrieve a paper boat that had accidentally swam into a storm-drain. The two stories – the children in 1957 and the adults in 1985 – are told concurrently.
Forever Odd is the second in a series of novels centred around the character Odd Thomas, a young man with the ability to see what he calls “the lingering dead” – spirits of dead people who, for one reason or another, have unfinished business before moving on. It’s far from an original notion, of course, but that didn’t stop me devouring the first and second novels quickly, and anticipating the third.
I became fascinated with this novel as a result of Dean Koontz talking about it (and the two sequels) on his podcast. One of Koontz’s friends pointed out to him, “Do you realise you’re writing the life story of a saint?” Koontz says that book one is all about the theme of perseverance, book two unearned suffering, and book three altruism. While Koontz is not specifically a Christian, I (as a Christian) am broadminded enough to know that you don’t have to be a Christian to learn (and communicate) important things about life. And so, I began Odd Thomas with anticipation.
I’ve noticed that there are a lot of zombie novels around these days. Most of them are of the small press or self-published variety. Why is this? Well, I can speak from personal experience and say that zombies sell. Back in the early 1990s, in my late teens, I co-directed and starred in a no-budget zombie flick, Zombie Genocide. This movie simply will not die. Regularly, I get requests for DVDs, while the other – and arguably better – movies I’ve made since then simply sit there and stagnate.
This novel was originally published over two decades ago (maybe three) under one of Dean Koontz’s pseudonyms. In a new afterword he says that, after re-reading the story and cringing a lot, he decided to re-write the whole thing from scratch. And it’s the new version that I’ve just read.
We begin with a bizarre death scene: Johnny Knox, a lonely teenager with a talent for drawing, is discovered one morning, dressed in his pyjamas, lying in his driveway, without a mark on him. Suicide, natural causes, or murder? No one knows. Classmate Steve Norton gets the first clue when leafing through Johnny’s art folder, where he discovers a portrait of a humanoid reptilian creature. Nothing strange in that; Johnny had a penchant for fantasy. Except this isn’t the first time Steve has seen the creature. The first time was in reality, when it was on his doorstep trying to get in and kill him. Clearly, Steve isn’t the only one who’s had an encounter with this beast. Where did the creature come from? What’s its purpose? Can it be stopped? Steve’s next move is to photocopy Johnny’s drawing and put it on the school’s noticeboard with his phone number .. and wait to see what happens.
I recently bought myself a Pocket PC and I’ve been trying out various applications on it, one of which is that old niche interest: the ebook. The vague memory of a free zombie novel was the first to surface in my mind, so I hunted for David Moody’s site and downloaded Autumn. Turns out, it’s pretty good.
I first encountered Harry Shannon on an internet forum called the Horror Author’s Network. He arrived on the scene in 2001 with a short story collection called Bad Seed, published by small press publisher Medium Rare Books. I followed his career with interest, watching as he released book after book in a steady flow between then and now (2001-07). Many spoke highly of Shannon’s work, and his mix of horror and crime fascinated me. Unfortunately, it was difficult to get his books in the UK at a reasonable price, even on eBay (he has become quite collectable). Finally, I was able to pick up Night of the Beast (his second book).
Apocalyptic stories are my favourite kind, and King has impressed me in the past with such tales as The Mist and The Stand. I listened to the hype surrounding Cell, and I couldn’t wait to get my hands on the book. I hadn’t felt this excited about a King novel in years. Mind you, I did think the idea of cell phones turning the populace into homicidal maniacs was a tad hokey (not to mention reminiscent of the film 28 Days Later), but not even that could deter my enthusiasm. Having read over thirty King novels, I had an inkling that he was going to do something unique and surprising with the idea. And what I was really looking forward to from King was a return to a more visceral and fast-paced form of storytelling than what he has been delivering lately. In that, at least, Cell does not disappoint.
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