The ambiguity of a dark dreamer

There isn't much I can say about Dexter that hasn't already been said. I'm fully aware of how late I am to this party. But watching the show's first series on CBS has been enough to inspire me to read the first book. The remarkably different first book.

The most striking thing about the differences in the story is that the book and series, although focusing on the same character in the same setting, seem to be about very different things.

The series deals almost exclusively with the existential questions or being (Is humanity something we're born with or something with do?). It's about that thin line between good and evil. And about the frustration of trying to make a difference in the world. (Among other thinigs.)

The book, Darkly Dreaming Dexter, doesn't spend as much time with Dexter wondering about the things he does. All of that just relates to who he is, and what the Dark Passenger requires him to do. Instead, there is far more detail about the politics of the police, of Miami, and of a world where a skilled detective felt he could have more impact on the world by focusing his adopted son's dark tendencies on "taking out the trash."

More interesting to me, is the book's sub-thread that seems to thumb its nose at Fight Club, as Dexter struggles with the logic-less idea that he might be the looking for the killer during the day and acting as the killer in subconsciously during the night.

Of course, instead of a truly interesting or novel resolution, we get the lame it-was-my-older-brother-I-never-knew-about ending. Oh well. A good book otherwise.