You can find my review of the first book in the series, Darkly Dreaming Dexter here.
This second instalment in Jeff Lindsay’s hugely popular Dexter series see’s our horrible yet loveable serial killer become a family man, while still trying desperately to bring his own brand of justice to two mysterious murders.
Dearly Devoted Dexter see’s my favourite murderous blood spatter analyst search for Reiker, an accomplice of a paedophile Dexter’s already had his wicked way with. Not only only that, he must work with his detective sister Deb and federal agent Kyle Chutsky to investigate and find a torturer with ties to El Salvador. All while under the watchful gaze of Sergeant Doakes, a colleague who senses the darkness within Dexter.
Dexter is a wonderfully self aware character who examines his own lack of humanity with the reader with some very funny dark humour, he’s quite charming if truth be told, if you ignore the frequent murdering anyway.
And that’s the biggest selling point for this novel, the likeability of Dexter and his wise cracking narration is easily the best part, at least for me, if you don’t like that kind of thing I’d steer clear of this series.
Dexter likes to tell you he’s a monster, that his dark passenger is really his only personality trait, yet Lindsay writes him with a little more depth and complexity than that. This is shown most evidently in his bond with his sister and step children Astor and Cody.
Lindsay’s reliance on Dexter is however a weakness too. Because his primary protagonist is so compelling he becomes lazy when it comes to the plot. The story here is surface level at best, it’s not overly compelling and is certainly thin at points with Dexter’s snarky narration lending it the thin veneer of competency.
Overall this is a nice fun murderous tale, if you enjoy blood soaked pages interlaced with dark humour then you’ll be pleased here. It’s nothing ground-breaking but it’s still a nice twist on the usual serial killer novels you’ll read.
Rating:
What did you think of our review? Let us know by voting below…
Booklytical 
Agreed, not quite as good as the first book. Shame, haven’t bothered reading the rest of the series yet.
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The rest are definitely worth reading if you get the chance
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