Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay

Dexter Morgan is a blood splatter analyst for the Miami police department with a secret, he's a serial killer. The twist is that he only kills that bad people that slip through the cracks of the system. With an uncanny sense to anticipate the killer's moves, his job puts him in the perfect position to track them down. In this first book in a series by Lindsay, there is a killer on the loose that Dexter feels strangely connected to as the killings are much like his own. Both intrigued and frightened, the killer lures Dexter into a game he can't refuse.

Showtime is running a show based on Lindsay's novels and I recently finished Season 1. Being a fan of Michael C. Hall (he plays Dexter) since he was on Six Feet Under and hearing about the premise of the show, I knew I had to check it out. It wasn't until later that I discovered that there were "Dexter" books. So how does the book compare to the show? It's similar but the book focuses more on the main killer rather than little side stories of Dexter tracking down a bad person like on the show. The book version helped me see inside Dexter's head a bit more but the show actually lays down more of a storyline about his past. There are also some plot differences but I won't go into them here since some of you might want to read the book or check out the show. In fact, CBS will begin airing Season 1 this Sunday night. I'm rather shocked that they are choosing to do this honestly because it's pretty gruesome. I'd imagine that the network would have to cut quite a bit out.