Book Review: Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay

Darkly Dreaming Dexter

Written by: Jeff Lindsay

Published: 2004

Synopsis: Meet Dexter Morgan, a polite wolf in sheep's clothing. He's handsome and charming, but something in his past has made him abide by a different set of rules. He's a serial killer whose one golden rule makes him immensely likeable: he only kills bad people. And his job as a blood splatter expert for the Miami police department puts him in the perfect position to identify his victims. But when a series of brutal murders bearing a striking similarity to his own style start turning up, Dexter is caught between being flattered and being frightened -- of himself or some other fiend.(via Goodreads)



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“Really now: If you can't get me my newspaper on time, how can you expect me to refrain from killing people?”

When I started watching Dexter I had no idea it was based on a book series. I distinctly remember my mum bringing the dvd of the first season home from work one day, and us then spending an entire Sunday watching through the whole show. Actually, that might be the first example of me binge watching TV and it's all my mum's fault. That's a load off my shoulders. 

Anyway, I only found out it was based on a book series a few years after it began airing on TV when the author, Jeff Lindsay, came to the Brisbane Writers Festival. I sat in on a few of his talks and thought he seemed fascinating and really interesting and made a mental note to actually read one of the Dexter books. And then the TV show started (in my opinion) to go downhill and I swore of Dexter, and moved on to Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones and whatever else began at about the same time. Cut to 2 months ago when I was killing time in a charity shop and found a copy of Darkly Dreaming Dexter for a wallet-busting $2. All of my promises to read the series flooded back and I decided to give book Dexter a go at redeeming his reputation after TV Dexter did such a dismal job.

If you've seen the TV show, this first book follows the first season fairly closely. We get introduced to Dexter and the folks of the Miami-Dade police department and the crux of the novel follows the "ice truck killer" (although it's never called that in the book) and some exploration of Dexter's childhood and how Harry's code (i.e. you're going to kill anyway, so kill bad guys) began. There's some interesting parallels drawn between the two killers and their styles, and reading about a serial killer through the eyes of another serial killer is quite an interesting perspective to take.

There are some clear differences between the book and the series and they boil down to two things. First, the characters. Deb is still his sister, Masuoka (Masuka in the show) is still creepy and Doakes doesn't like Dexter, but LaGuerta is quite different and Angel is a medical examiner, rather than a cop. Dexter's relationship with Rita is also a very minor part of the book. The second actually builds off the first, and it's that this is almost entirely Dexter's story. The book rarely delves into the other characters outside of conversations they have with Dexter or if he happens to catch them looking at him. This makes a lot of sense given that he's meant to be a sociopath and he's depicted as quite egocentric, but the great thing about expanding the view outside of his POV in the show, is that we are reminded that, oh yeah, he's a goddamn monster.

The idea to only kill bad guys in an interesting one. It sometimes feels like Dexter has a superpower, and instead of channeling it towards evil he uses it for the good of the city. When you hear him talk about Miami and the decay that has set in, the drugs and gangs and murder, it's hard not to think that he's doing the police a solid. Clearing the trash that they can't legally touch because of tricky things like evidence and motive. But it's a lot like Walter White in Breaking Bad. Sure, he's doing it for his family! He wants them to have money to survive after he dies of cancer, so selfless! So loving! Then you remember he's cooking meth, and that there are probably a lot of families being destroyed because of that meth, and a lot of lives cut short because he's decided that this is the best way he can provide for his family. Dexter's code to kill the big bads is nice in theory, until you remember he's a serial killer. HE MURDERS PEOPLE. Who is he to decide someone deserves to die? Who is he to decide that a rapist should disappear into a bunch of garbage bags, rather than see the inside of a court room. Who made him judge, juror and executioner? Because otherwise he'd kill decent people? That's not really much of an option. That's one reason I wish the books pulled back from his perspective a bit. He refers to himself as not human countless times, but without a proper outside perspective it's hard to step back and actually see him as the monster he says he is.

The book is a really easy read. I don't love Jeff Lindsay's writing style, it's quite stilted at points and some of Dexter's dialogue just didn't work for me. I also found all of the characters quite flat, but it's hard to say whether this is intentional because the book is being told from the perspective of a sociopath, someone who admits to neither caring nor understanding the way people think and act. All in all it makes for a quick and entertaining read, I just don't know that I'll bother reading any more unless I can find similar deals at the charity shop.

Book Review: The Pilo Family Circus by Will Elliott

The Pilo Family Circus 

Written by: Will Elliott

Published: 2009

Synopsis: "You have two days to pass your audition. You better pass it, feller. You’re joining the circus. Ain’t that the best news you ever got?” Delivered by a trio of psychotic clowns, this ultimatum plunges Jamie into the horrific alternate universe that is the centuries-old Pilo Family Circus, a borderline world between Hell and Earth from which humankind’s greatest tragedies have been perpetrated. Yet in this place—peopled by the gruesome, grotesque, and monstrous—where violence and savagery are the norm, Jamie finds that his worst enemy is himself. When he applies the white face paint, he is transformed into JJ, the most vicious clown of all. And JJ wants Jamie dead!

Challenges:  RIP VIII
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“The classic definition of slapstick runs along the line of, "Funny is someone else ramming his face repeatedly into a brick wall.”

When I decided to take part in RIP VIII I knew it was the perfect opportunity to finally read The Pilo Family Circus. Tom had bought it a few years ago and had raved about it, but for whatever reason it continued to sit unread on my shelf. Maybe it was the clowns thing, for some strange reason I've always found clowns terrifying.

Oh right, that's why.

So anyway, when RIP VIII was announced I immediately started this book so that I couldn't pass over it yet again. And while I liked it, I didn't like it for the reasons I thought I'd like it and it wasn't nearly the terrifying clown nightmare I'd been expecting.

But first a note about the author Will Elliott. Elliott is from my adopted home city Brisbane, so there's a certain level of squee for me reading this since I know the streets he's talking about and I can work out which hotel or club he's mocking based on the hints he gives which is awesome because I normally haven't been to the places in books I read. At the time of writing this book, Elliott had recently been diagnosed with schizophrenia and I think that adds a fascinating level to the novel. He's said that the book is in no way autobiographical, but considering the crux of the story is a young Brisbane male who "shares" his body and mind with a psychotic clown and has to try and find a way to extricate himself from the situation - I think it's safe to say that his own experiences aren't entirely divorced from the novel.

So if you read the synopsis up yonder, it seems like it has all the ingredients for a terrifying clown-filled horror novel that will have you literally shaking in your boots. It's actually a lot more of an absurdist dark comedy that plays with horror and thriller tropes than anything truly terrifying. And I actually think this played out a lot better than anything I expected to read. The real beauty of this novel is that so much is written matter-of-factly, "oh clowns wandering the streets? We are in New Farm afterall, no big deal" that it's only when you put it down to take a break or eat dinner that you realise how bat-shit crazy it actually is. The majority of the novel takes place in a circus that exists in some metaphysical space between Earth and Hell, where centuries-old circus folk put on shows for "tricks" (people on earth who wander into this show from an earth-bound circus or fair) because that's their job. Yes they're also doing it to collect the tricks' souls, but that's not nearly as important as putting on a Good Show. Add to this the co-owner of the circus, Kurt Pilo, who looks wolfish and eats teeth as snacks, one of the clowns is engaged to a fern, there's a yeti that eats glass which makes him sad, souls can grant wishes and murders are a regular occurrence. And while writing all of this makes me feel like I'm stuck in some kind of fun-house mirror room, in the book is just is. It's a circus that has something to do with Lovecraftian demon creatures, so of course things are crazy. Of course, everyone tries to kill each other. Of course the clown face paint transforms Jamie into the demonic JJ the Clown. Of course, there's a character called fishboy who is just lovely. Of Course, the circus is somehow responsible for WWII. It all just makes complete sense while you're caught up in the narrative, it's only back in the real world that the images start to seem warped and twisted.

While I say this book is more of a dark comedy, there are still instances of horror and suspense, so if you're horror-wary maybe don't run to your library for this book too quickly. The opening scenes that are set in Brisbane, where Jamie goes from hotel concierge to unwitting clown recruit, are brutal and tense. After picking up a bag of mysterious crystals that the clowns dropped (some kind of drugs, Jamie supposes), Jamie's house is destroyed, his housemate is kidnapped, he's poisoned and he sees the clowns in the basement of his hotel with a lit match preparing to blow the whole thing up. And this is only the first 20 or so pages. There are two more returns made to this above-world in the novel, and in both of these scenes the grotesquery and horror that seemed so normal in the circus was thrown into sharp relief. Will Elliott has a pretty sick and sinister underside, and considering this was his debut novel and he was in his early 20s when writing it, it's damn impressive how well he manages to accomplish all of this.

So if you're after a Halloween read that won't continue to haunt you post-Halloween, then I wholeheartedly recommend you take a closer look at this one from Will Elliott. Entertaining and well written with brief moments of pure horror, The Pilo Family Circus is still more likely to make you laugh than run for the bedcovers.