Would you believe I continued on to the second book? The charismatic serial killer is now forced into pretend retirement, as he is closely being watched by a colleague at the police department... Just when a new exciting neighbor comes to town, making Dexter's work look like child's play. The book continues to be a fast read. There is still a lot of repetition in the writing, about how Dexter really doesn't feel, about how devoted he is to his sister, etc... things that have been told 100 times in 100 different sentence plays. Interesting for another fast read. Watch out, though.. I think this may be a little more gory.

http://bactra.org/weblog/algae-2009-0... ( )

This is the second book in the series by Jeff Lindsay. Dexter, a forensic blood spatter analyst for the Miami Police Department and serial killer in his off work hours, seems to be a nice guy. As one of his co-workers becomes suspicious of his extracurricular activities and starts following him, Dexter starts to live a normal life visiting his girlfriend and her two kids. When a new killer leaves a living package Dexter’s dark side perks up in interest and the hunt is on. For the strong of stomach, this new episode is a good read with twists and turns as Dexter’s dark passenger wants to come out to play. ( )

Boy, this is good. This has some disturbing (if you think about it too long) elements but it's a great read. I enjoyed it tremendously. ( )

After reading the first book in this series last month, I figured I might as well come back and read the newer one. The basic setup is the same: you have Dexter, our serial killer narrator, only operating on those who slipped through the justice system cracks; his sister, a hard-bitten cop on the force; a police-side antagonist, making it harder for Dexter to get done what he wants; and another killer, even more unspeakable than our hero, who Dexter and the police try to track down.

Really, the main differences are in the details. We get more of Dexter's non-murderous life with his girlfriend and her kids, and it works well. It also provides what I felt to be the funniest moment in the book, and also the one that's the creepiest (and that's saying something). Also, if the main character types are the same, the characters themselves are a bit better. Dexter is more interesting in this one, I think, and the police antagonist, Doakes, is much more interesting than the one from the last book, who was consistantly portrayed as a bit dim. On the other hand, I liked Deborah, the sister, less here, and the murderer is less interesting, in a sense.

Still, the plot is good, and the writing is very good; Dexter's narration and the style of it is quite interesting, and he's a compelling character. The dialogue isn't always great, but the internal monologue usually is. And since that's the bulk of the book, it carries the day. I'll look into the next one... probably in paperback, which'll leave about a year or so between me and it, but I'll still look into it. ( )