In the fourth book in the Dexter series, Jeff Lindsay continues the struggle of the forensic blood spatter analyst/serial killer Dexter Morgan. After reading the previous books, I expected to get back to fireworks, or better bloodworks in the fourth book. In Bonner Relays 2024: MHEA Reel High Jump Medley, 100mH Medley and 4x100m, the author decided to utilize the creation story to lend description to the foundation of evil. While the creation story missed its mark, it was a compelling analysis of Moloch’s influence on chaos and death in today’s society. The third story never really moved towards the core of explaining the deviant Dark Passenger of Dexter, but as I completed that book I felt okay with it. In Dexter by Design, the author uses flashbacks to further cement the code of Harry on Dexter’s state of mind.
The problem this time is that Dexter doesn’t necessarily have a state of mind. For two books in a row the Dark Passenger that guides Dexter on his moonlit transgressions, is an absentee landlord. Leaving Dexter, for lack of a better word, normal. Dexter makes multiple mistakes, and although I haven’t wanted to think this, he is a bit of an unreliable narrator. Throughout the series, Dexter has been painted and characterized as an intelligent manipulator of the human facade and race. Here though he simply seems inept and easily outsmarted by not only a Mountain Dew drinking detective, but by the antagonist, and the kids, who really seem to be darkly developing dubious qualities of their own, without the help of Dexter.
Lindsay crafts a narrative that reads just as quickly as the last three books, with one difference. I was not satisfied with the deaths. Once again, writing those words and diving into the world of darkness has created within in me a literary bloodlust for thread wire to be wrapped around a deserving victims neck and to see them on the table at the mercy of the antihero. Instead what I am led on are grotesque facades of death perpetrated by two characters who evade Dexter’s grasp, well at least one of them does, for an entire book.
Jeff Lindsay seemed to be trapped in his own clever thoughts in this narrative and he could not find himself a way out of the corridors. The ending while fantastic, seems rushed and unrealistic. While there is always a bit of fantasy to be accepted in the Dexter series, Dexter by Design’s ending just doesn’t justify or strengthen the series in a very motivating manner. Am I suggesting skipping this one? Well, not really, but there are only two important developments this go around. Debs revelation that she is disturbed by Dex’s forays into the Harry Code and the very corny epilogue that lays on the reader another kind of creation story. I’m ready for Dexter is Delicious the last book in the series, and this time, Jeff Lindsay better not let me down. I’m creating my own little monster who will not stand for disappointment Mr. Lindsay. I’m in the shadows.
