BASIC BOOKTOMETRICS
NAME: Dexter’s Final Cut
AUTHOR: Jeff Lindsay
PUBLISHER: Doubleday
NUMBER OF PAGES: 368 in Hardcover
YEAR PUBLISHED: 2013
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***WARNING*** It’s Bookshelf Battle’s inaugural review, and already, there are spoilers. Therefore, if you feel that spoilers could jeopardize your enjoyment of the Dexter TV show or novels, and yet you continue to read anyway, then you are dumber than Vince Masuka. END OF WARNING ***
“They made him a lumberjack. A LUMBERJACK!!!! WE SPENT EIGHT YEARS ON THE EDGE OF OUR SEATS WONDERING WHAT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN TO THIS GUY AND IN THE END HE GOT A JOB SAWING LOGS!!! WHAT THE HELL???!!!!!”
Does that sound about like what you thought when you watched the series finale of Dexter on Showtime last year? Me too. I don’t know about you, but for eight years, I wondered about questions like “Will Dexter ever be brought to justice for his crimes?” and “Will the world at large ever learn about Dexter’s ‘Dark Passenger?'” Never, ever once did I wonder, “Gee whiz, is a midlife career change from the forensic analysis field to the deforestation industry really a viable option for Dexter?”
I could rant and rave all day about the direction the Dexter TV show went in at the end, but then again, I remember the first, second, and fourth seasons and it is hard to stay mad at people who brought us such good television. So I’m just going to pretend that ending, where Dexter drives his boat up to a dock at a hospital (Are there really hospitals that have docks that you can just drive a boat up to?) and openly walked out the front door with his dead sister in his arms (apparently this hospital spent more on the boat dock than it did on security) and chucks her carcass into the bay with all of his dismembered victims (because, you know, it’s not like Deb, as a dedicated police officer deserved one of those fancy police funerals with the twenty-one gun salute and the flag draped on the coffin, no, I’m sure she would have wanted to be fish food in an underwater burial ground for her serial killer brother’s victims instead).
Forget all that. Classic Dexter is back in the latest Jeff Lindsay novel, Dexter’s Final Cut. This book brings us back to the time where Rita is still alive (shut up, the reason I warned you there were spoilers in this post is because someone posted the “Rita dies” spoiler online with no warning while I was still watching season three and I almost suffered a brain aneurysm), Astor and Cody are still in the picture and have not been whisked away to live with grandparents in Orlando, and Capt. Matthews still rules the roost. Deb no longer resides at the bottom of the bay but rather, is alive, well and just as potty-mouthed as ever.
The story surrounds Dexter as he deals with Hollywood stars who have descended upon Miami Metro looking for professional guidance on how to shoot a crime drama for the fictional Big Ticket Network. A body is found in a dumpster and well, I won’t spoil this one but needless to say, various and sundry shenanigans of a macabre nature ensue. Dexter TV show watchers only had a small taste of Dexter’s narration, whereas novel readers are treated to a whole book-full of Dexter’s internal monologue, as he explains with dark humor why his Dark Passenger makes him do the things he does.
For those who are still scratching their heads about Dexter Season 8, rest assured that this book does not disappoint. The only spoiler I’ll give away is that nowhere in this novel does Dexter chop wood of any kind.
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