Blog 2 - Darkly Dreaming Dexter

The novel Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay is about a forensic blood splatter pattern analyst for the Miami Police Department named Dexter Morgan. Ironically he has another job and his other job is a serial killer. He grew up in a foster house with his foster father a police officer named Harry Morgan. Harry taught Dexter two things; one was how to kill someone without leaving any evidence behind and to kill only those who deserved to die. He only kills other serial killers, child molesters and murderers that he thinks have escaped from proper punishment. When Dexter was living in his foster home he also grew up with his foster sister, Deborah. She is also a police officer.

When a serial killer (the Tamiami Butcher), with an interesting and exciting style that impresses Dexter, starts killing Miami’s prostitutes throughout the city, he begins to send messages to Dexter. His sister Deborah, who invited him to the scene to help, uses all these murders to get out of the Miami Vice unit and into the Homicide unit. Throughout the novel Dexter doesn’t know which side to take, do nothing and watch the skill of a fellow serial killer’s work or help Deborah figure out the case. With a surprising ending the serial killer everybody has been looking for ends up being one of Dexter’s older siblings.

I think the theme of the novel Darkly Dreaming Dexter is suspense. There are many gripping parts in this thriller. It could also be called dark and action themed because it’s about murder.

The author Jeff Lindsay uses the point of view of the main character to tell the story Darkly Dreaming Dexter. I think the speaking in first person narrative was very effective because it kept the story exciting and we could tell how he is feeling things much easier.

The only thing that I could think of to relate this book to teens my age and myself is when your mother tells you not to watch anything scary right before you go to bed. The same can be said about this book if you have trouble sleeping and experience nightmares because there are some really graphic parts. I didn’t really notice any connections to anything we’ve done so far.

I liked this book a lot so it’s hard to find anything for the author to improve on but one thing that Jeff Lindsay can do to this book to make it better for me is to make it longer.

I would definitely recommend this book but not for all audiences because there is a lot of murder and it is gruesome. I would recommend this to older teens, thriller lovers, people who like crime fiction and to people that watch the amazing television series.

In the novel Darkly Dreaming Dexter there are some examples of rhetorical terms. A term that I see a lot in this novel is a simile. An example of this is when Dexter is thinking about a certain cop he thinks to himself, “…nobody could possibly allow a pimple like LaGuerta to catch him.” (Pg. 115, paragraph 1). Another rhetorical term in this novel is onomatopoeia, “It went thack thack against the door.” (Pg. 128, paragraph 3).

Overall I thought this book was great and definitely in my top five. Pick it up.

By: Logan Semple