Dexter in the Dark review
By: Richard Lu

If you’ve ever seen Dexter on T.V then you’ll probably know that the plot of the show is about a man with dark desires who wishes to kill people. Instead of using these desires to kill innocent people, Dexter only bears his fangs on other predators that have escaped the judgement of the courts. The plot is absolutely gorgeous and it keeps viewers coming back week after week. Thankfully the book version of Dexter has follows the same format, Dexter expresses his dark passenger by killing other criminals, just like in the show. If that’s the case than the book “Dexter in the Dark” must be as much of a masterpiece as its television counterpart right? Well no, not really.

Dexter in the Dark is about Dexter losing the voice of the Dark Passenger that drives him to become the murderer that he is. Without it Dexter feels naked and vulnerable to other predators. Dexter then begins his search on why his inner voice left him. While I’ll gladly admit that the first half of the novel was written well enough to keep my interest high, it doesn’t go anywhere but downhill from there.

The second half of Dexter in the Dark is an absolute train wreck, detouring dimensions far away from reality. Apparently the book Dexter’s Dark Passenger is caused by an ancient god named Moloch whom has the ability to multiply itself within the minds of many. These possessed people will then crave blood and become predators. Furthermore, people possessed by Moloch will hear music inside their heads that will put them in trance like states, which I found as being pretty out there. As Desiree had said somewhere below me, the T.V version of Dexter was great because it didn’t feel the need to dive into the origins of the Dark Passenger, keeping the plot feeling realistic.

If you’re like me and you decided to pick up this book because you couldn’t get enough of the television Dexter then do yourself a favour, don’t. Like many of the reviewers below me I found that the addition of the mystical gods crap was both unnecessary and stupid. The Dexter of the book just isn’t the same Dexter that we’ve all come to know and love. Jeff Lindsay’s Dexter in the Dark could have been a great way for fans of Dexter to enjoy more Dexter, as it stands now however, it’s just a big disappointment. Hopefully future Dexter novels will mend the wound inflicted upon Dexter’s good name, though I doubt it, since mystic gods have already been introduced in the world of novel Dex.