Dexter in the Dark – No Peace for the Wicked…

Dexter in the Dark (2007) by Jeff Lindsay is the third in the series about Dexter Morgan, a Miami PD blood spatter analyst and serial killer.

Me, personally, I am a huge fan of the TV-series Dexter, starring the talented Michael C. Hall. It’s easy to hear the sinister voice-over so prevalent in the show while reading Lindsay’s prose. There’s a cheerful callousness to the narrative voice that really appeals to me, if for no other reason than the fact that it is unique in its consistency.

I picked up my copy more by accident than by design at a thrift shop for next to nothing, idly passing my time scanning the bins of books, as any good bibliophile would. I remember what I thought of the first novel, so I don’t think I would have gone out of my way to buy this one had not circumstance been conducive. But, it’s like that sometimes.

It’s a good read, fast paced and easy and darkly funny. My sense of humour is certainly dark enough to enjoy the inner monologue of the unrepentant and cheerfully psychopathic Dexter Morgan, a man who is essentially not a man, which he confidently points out frequently enough to remind the reader that is sort of the running theme.

Dexter is certainly the master of the art of camouflage. To the casual observer he is a successful blood-spatter analyst, a member of the police, an upstanding citizen about to get married to his long-term girlfriend Rita and be a father to her two children, Astor and Cody, from a previous marriage. All that is just hiding in plain sight. In reality he is a serial killer, a psychopath and more than a little dangerous.

The thing is, Dexter has this second inner voice he calls The Dark Passenger, supposedly brought on by the bloody trauma he suffered as a young boy. I have no problems thinking of the lust for blood like a second voice, a sort of guiding personification of his own fucked-up psyche, but Lindsay has chosen to make it literal. By the end of this novel Dexter’s Dark Passenger is a demon, and his adversary in this novel is a demon of higher rank and power. It is given voice in third person passages where IT speaks directly to the reader.

Again, you can wrangle yourself around the idea that Dexter has reified his bloodlust, given it a name, made it a constant companion, all that. It even makes sense to me, knowing a little about sociopathy and psychopathy. But when there is suddenly demons in the works, real actual King Solomon demons… I get a little disappointed. Everything I like about this particular narrative voice loses from that, in my humble opinion. And again I am struck by that same thought that I had when I read the first novel.

It’s stylish and funny and briskly dark and the main character is so intriguing in his own right that I am disappointed that the story doesn’t go somewhere more interesting. I like Dexter. I know that’s not entirely healthy, but then, this is fiction and that’s the premise. Lindsay does a good job with it, that unapologetic and completely solipsistic way of viewing the world is skewed enough that it will keep you interested through the 375 pages. But the story, the actual narrative arc itself, is surprisingly trite, mundane and requires more of a willing suspension of disbelief than I can give.

Why did they have to be demons? I’ve read my share… probably more than my share, of gothic and horror. I have no problem with monsters. I know many of them very well. It is the other side of Dexter, the lack of humanity, that interests me more. When Dexter searches for the proper human response to a situation things get really fascinating.

“It was difficult to think of anything clever or even socially acceptable to say to that. I had never read anywhere what to say to someone speaking of having feeling in his amputated hand. Chutsky seemed to feel the awkwardness, because he gave me a small dry snort of non-humorous amusement. “Hey, well”, he said, “there’s still a couple of kicks left in the old mule.” It seemed to me an unfortunate choice of words, since he was also missing his left foot, and any kicking at all seemed out of the question. Still, I was pleased to see him coming out of his depression, so it seemed like a good thing to agree with him.” (341-342)

See what I mean? That’s where things about Dexter are the most intriguing to me. I guess I’m just a little twisted that way.

Still, it’s funny if you like your humour dark. And it’s different. And that makes it worth the while to read it.

MULE

Half is nowhere, Dexter… Darkly Dreaming Dexter

Jeff Lindsay’s Darkly Dreaming Dexter (2004) is the basis for the television series Dexter. We have the lead character Dexter Morgan whose inner monologue we are treated to as an interesting counterpoint to what is actually going on around him.

Dexter works as a forensic officer for the Miami Police. His area of expertise is concerning blood and blood spatter patterns, that kind of thing. Riding along behind Dexter’s slow boyish smile is the other persona he calls the Dark Passenger, a double, a separate part of his personality which has a distinct need – Dexter is a serial killer. What makes it all alright is the fact that he only hunts other serial killers. That is until the “ice truck killer” comes along and spoils the moral parameters that Dexter’s stepfather have set up. Within this framework Dexter is allowed to hunt and kill other killers, but he is not allowed to hurt the innocent and that’s exactly the temptation the “ice truck killer” offers.

There are all kinds of moral ambiguities you could argue out within this particular story, some of the more interesting ones concern the classical double standard of killing the killers, being judge-jury-and-executioner, is it still morally valid if you enjoy it too much and so on and so forth… Dexter describes himself as a monster. He means this in the way we sometimes hear psychopaths described, but the portrait is mostly about the surface. There is no deeper understanding of the psychopath’s inner workings – something you can find in for instance Bret Easton Ellis American Psycho (1991). The story itself if swift and enjoyable, the gore is not too gory and you will not be unnecessarily troubled by the fact that it is a first person narrative, since the voice is dry, witty and keeps a certain distance.

This is basically a slightly more twisted than usual detective story.

However – and this is a big however – the ending sucks. I wish there was a better expression for it but there it is, that’s what is does. The characters anagnorisis is a terrible disappointment to me at least since I have read sufficiently about psychopathy and sociopathy to recognise some of the basic patterns of character and see how these could have been developed in much more interesting ways. Dragging up a second dark double to double Dexter’s Dark Passenger (and feel free to hear Iggy Pop playing inside your head at this point – I definitely do) is interesting, but like any good horror movie proves – you don’t want to see the monster exposed in broad daylight. Suddenly all the darkness goes out of the story and it turns sentimental and you can see the masks on the performers in the rubber suits. And that’s exactly what you don’t want. I for one don’t care why Dexter feels the way he does. I don’t care why he has the need to kill. There are other much more interesting themes to develop.

This novel is polished and stylish, sure, but it lacks depth and is seems a little too polite. It’s too bad Jeff Lindsay chickened out and didn’t take it all the way.

Mule