Mixed Pickles - the Book log 2012

DEXTER IS BACK...
in the sixth volume of the series.  Now, for anyone who watches the TV series (and it is excellent in its own way) don't expect to be able to pick up the books in random order and make any sense of them.  After Season One (which followed the first Dexter novel faithfully) the two media split in completely separate universes (see "Walking Dead" for another example).   So don't expect to see all the same characters, in the same relationships, or even in the same state of corporeal existence.

In this print universe, Dex is married, a recently-made father and uncle, and still enjoying his nights out with his Dark Passenger.  Until, that is, someone witnesses him at work and, deciding that he is a fit person to rid the world of a monster, sets out on a mission to Do Dex Down, while Dexter himself struggles to find a way to locate his new adversary and put him out of the picture.  At the same time, Dex's old nemesis, the severely abbreviated Sgt Doakes finds a new ally in his campaign to uncover out our hero's secret life.

Lindsay manages to ring the changes with each new Dexter novel.  There is never a feeling of repetition, of re-using the same plots, or of having the character re-voice pet anecdotes, but instead new scenarios are imagined, and characters grow and change, as people (and even monsters) do.   Already looking forward to book seven.

Unputdownability : Not now!  Can't you see I'm reading?