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DEARLY DEVOTED DEXTER
by Jeff Lindsay
Orion, January 2006
304 pages
12.99GBP
ISBN: 075286677X


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Jeff Lindsay's DEARLY DEVOTED DEXTER is one of a kind. So if you think you've seen it all where serial killers are concerned, you may have to think again.

You might have picked up the hype for Lindsay's debut novel, DARKLY DREAMING DEXTER. Dexter is the hero of the books, but who just happens to be a serial killer. Not a nasty random one, of course, but the sort of chap who only finishes off those who deserve it.

In the second in the series, he's been rumbled by Sergeant Doakes, who is dogging his every step. Consequently Dexter hasn't killed for a while, and is starting to twitch rather badly.

And then there's the complication of his love life in the form of Rita and her two kids. Dexter doesn't do human relationships, you understand, although he does scrub up well in public and is a popular chap in his day job as a blood-spatter analyst for Miami police.

And that's kind of the problem. He's supposed to hit it off with everyone he meets, but Lindsay spends a bit too long being super-duper smart-arsed without really doing an awful lot of work on building up Dexter as a character.

I dunno, maybe that doesn't matter. The book has the feel of an Evanovich in that the premise and the asides seem to be the driving force. And hellfire, look how many books Evanovich has produced in the Stephanie Plum series . . .

The plot in DEARLY DEVOTED DEXTER is fair to middlingly gross, so steer clear if you don't like blood and guts. All these bodies keep turning up in an absolutely foul state. And somehow Dexter gets roped in to helping his policewoman sister Deborah and FBI agent Chutsky find out what they had in common and who is torturing and mutilating them so horribly.

Don't get me wrong, the book is entertaining, but I'm really not fussed about going back and reading the first one, or indeed searching out the next one. It's all a little too self-consciously 'hey mum, look at me, no hands!' And pleeeease, the alliteration gag gets old a bit quickly.

Hey, lots of writers have got famous on a one-trick pony. Good luck to Lindsay. Wonder if he can write anything else . . .

Reviewed by Sharon Wheeler, January 2006

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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