"Dexter by Disappointment" might have been a better title. This isn't a patch on the preceding books.

As the Dexterverse has grown, the protaganist's arc of movement has been restricted. In this book Dex bounces like a flaccid marshmallow within a giant pinball machine; riccochet off Noakes onto Rita, roll onto the bumpers of Astor and Cody and be flicked against Deborah and Ryan.

Breaking from the Harry Path may have seemed a good way to inject excitement into the plot but, really, it destroyed one of the series' fundamental moral certainties. Authors mess with things like that at their peril.

The worst thing is that, barring some sort of reboot, our anti-hero will be even more constrained in the following books. Dexter now has internal police investigations and the FBI keeping a weather eye on him.

Sorry Jeff, this one didn't do it for me.