Darkly Dreaming

I have always been a fan of Showtime's hit show about Americas favorite serial killer, Dexter.  Before you read any further know that if you have not read or watched any of Dexter this may contain spoilers. Dexter is a killer, a killer with a code, Harry's code. He only kills those that deserve to be killed. I have been a fan of the show, faithfully watching every episode and owning every season. After throughly enjoying and finishing the t.v. show and having a goal of reading 14 book by the end of this year I decided to pick the original novel by Jeff Lindsay.

Season 1 of the t.v. show is one of my favorite seasons and is based on the Book Darkly Dreaming Dexter. The book and the show deal with the same story line, that of the Ice Truck Killer and the origin of Dexter's "Dark Passenger" (The thing that gives Dexter the need to kill).  But they deal with the story line in different ways. The book is much more descriptive of the nature of Dexter's Dark Passenger in a way that made my skin crawl so much more than the show ever did. It was clear that the Dark Passenger is driving Dexter's need to kill. There is a constant theme of learning to be human in both the t.v. series and the book, but the in book you can tell he is not human, he doesn't know how to be but fakes it. The show deals with this a lot and Michael C. Hall (the actor that portrays Dex) does a really good job, but the way that Jeff Lindsay (the author) describes him and his inhumanness sends chills up and down my spine. To think that there are really people out there that experience life the way that he does and that have a need like Dexter's need makes me cringe. 

People that don't die till late in the seasons of the show die in this first book and people that don't die int the book die in the show. Events that take place in the first book don't in the series. Just like any other book translated into screen things change. All together I can see why the producers made the decisions to add, and take away to Jeff Lindsay's novel to put on the screen to create content for a whole season. With the events that happen in the book that don't happen in the series I wonder how the remaining books coincide with the rest of the seven seasons of the show. The voices in my head give this book a blood curdling four out of five stars ****