I picked this omnibus up from an op shop a while ago and as it creates a nice hole in my To Be Read Pile I thought I’d give it a go, having read two of the three books without a break I’m now asking myself why.

Dexter is not normal and we’re told this so many, many times that we have to believe he actually knows himself. His father created a really bad childhood for him so Dexter was warped by the age of three and his foster father, Harry, instead of helping him become normal counselled him to channel his darkness into killing the right people for the right reasons. When we arrive at the first book Dexter is a blood spatter analyst and uses his job to help him find pedophiles and other people who ‘deserve’ death. His evidence is good but won’t get through a court of law, but that’s okay as Dexter abides by the Code of Harry to make sure he’s killing the right person for the right reasons.

This is really dark stuff, well written although I am getting rather annoyed with being reminded so often about how bad and warped and totally not normal Dexter is. The constant reminders remind me of Fifty Shades of Grey and how we were constantly reminded how the two people were drawn to one another, the big difference here is that Dexter is well written.

Each book stands alone except we do find out a little more about his childhood trauma in Darkly Dreaming Dexter. Lindsay seems to be drawing a long bow here and telling us how really bad childhoods can cause trauma and lead the child (then adult) to become twisted and not normal and I’m not sure I totally agree with him. Yes, it does give some formation of the person’s character but there are other things that intervene and it couldn’t possibly twist a person as much as Lindsay is saying.

Because of this childhood trauma Dexter appears to have an alter ego, much like in The United States of Tara, the difference being that Dexter has conversation with his Dark Passenger and relies on him for some of his detective work. Dexter then lets the Dark Passenger take over during those times when he is taking some deserving person to their final end.

I’m going to struggle to finish the last book in this omnibus and then I’m going to read something totally different to cleanse my brain of the gore, maybe a business book or two.

Edit: Finished the book and found I had to eat my words. You can see the follow up here.