Jeff Lindsay Dearly Devoted Dexter

Dearly Devoted Dexter

Jeff Lindsay

Doubleday, Aug 2005, $22.95

ISBN: 0385511248

Miami-Dade police forensics lab blood spatter analyst Dexter "the Avenger" Morgan obsesses in Euphoria when he slices and dices a person, but he also is selective in who he carves up choosing the dregs of society, and psychopaths especially serial killers. He recently notched number forty, homicidal pedophile photographer Steve Reiker and eagerly awaits his next victim.

A serial slicer Danco apparently leisurely over a few weeks surgically removes extremities from his victims who he keeps alive as he slowly mutilates them one body part at a time. When a still alive Salvadoran Manuel Borges is found, he has no body part hanging off his torso; the medical examiner estates he underwent at least a month of torture as some of the slits left by the carved off body part healed. Dexter admires this newcomer to the slice and dice game, but also decides to stop this rival although some DC outsider Kyle Chutsky claims lead until he is abducted and loses a finger with more to follow. Now Dexter goes hunting to find the killer.

As with DARKLY DREAMING DEXTER, DEARLY DEVOTED DEXTER is a wild macabre perhaps insane South Florida police procedural starring a psychopathic hero who enjoys the finer things in life, eviscerating serial killers. How crazy Dexter is comes out loud clear when unlike his peers and his adversary in the police department who are horrified by Danco's work, the Avenger recognizes a fellow artisan albeit one that he must stop. Readers expecting a High Noon showdown between two professional slashers will enjoy the duel when it occurs but will wait for quite a while as Dexter the sleuth investigates.

Harriet Klausner