Dexter by Design

Both Dexter by Design and Dexter in the Dark have contained material unique to the novels, and as a fan of the Dexter TV series, I have to start questioning whether or not I actually like the source material. The story is a great page turner, but I don't think most people will find the climax to be a fulfilling one. I also don't understand why Dexter is such a passive actor in the past two novels; I find it out-of-character and an indication of cheap writing to ensure the plot happens the way it was imagined.

That said, Jeff Lindsay has always written Dexter into a corner and never pulled the trigger -- it's like those TV shows where you always have to return to the status quo because every episode is interchangeable. Dexter needs to stay in the Miami Forsenics department, and anything that really threatens that status quo is resolved in an unsatisfying manner.

I'll give this series one more book, as I said, they are entertaining. But similar to junk food, I regret it afterwards.

The cat and mouse between Brandon Weiss and Dexter is honestly stupid when summarized. To start, it requires Dexter to not understand, and then willfully ignore someone's (Alex Doncevic) dying words. The "smile" line is so obvious at pointing to a camera that it's really just bad writing. The author wants Dexter to face a Weiss with information about Dex, and that's the easiest way to do so. That it makes Dexter look like an incompetent? Doesn't cross his mind. And then the matchup is what, a dead scoutmaster that is frankly forgotten by the plot, a hit-and-run that Dexter is absent for (and is solved by his children), an utterly ridiculous sideplot to Cuba where Debra's boyfriend decides he and Dex are going to just kill someone in a foreign country, and finally, some sort of ridiculous art exhibit where people are going to openly allow a woman to be tied up and cut by a table saw. Weiss is both simultaneously the most capable man alive, with knowledge about every part of Dexter's life and able to anticipate and outwit him, and then is utterly incapable of dealing with two small children on the reg.

Oh, and then there's a cheap murder of Coulter, who is again, defeated by this Weiss idiot savant who is invincible off-screen but is instantly incapable whenever he's actually on-screen.

The only saving grace is that it seems like Dexter is in the cross-hairs of IA and possibly the FBI. It remains to be seen if Jeff Lindsay is able to write these antagonists to a satisfying ending, or if they'll just be accidentally offed by the serial murderer of Book 5 while Dexter flounders around like Mr Bean.