DARKLY DREAMING DEXTER: Dexter Morgan can't stand the sight of blood. Which makes his job as a blood spatter analyst for the Miami PD a little tricky. But it means that he's very tidy when it comes to his hobby: murder. After all, even though Dexter only ever kills bad people, he doesn't want to draw attention to it. But now there's another killer out there who's being a whole lot less subtleDEARLY DEVOTED DEXTER: Miami 's best-dressed serial killer is getting twitchy – he hasn't killed for months. Ever since their paths first crossed, Sergeant Doakes hasn't let Dexter Morgan out of his sight. Then a body turns up, mutilated and barely alive. To trap the torturer, Doakes and Dexter will have to work together, if they can trust each other. It's a devil's pact and one of them will have to be the bait…DEXTER IN THE DARK: When Dexter is brought in to analyse a charred headless corpse, it seems he's dealing with a killer even more sinister than he is, and one with a personal interest in him. And with Dexter now having a wedding to plan and a family to protect, the stakes are high. As he realises his step-children might share his blood-lust, if he's ever to help them target it, Dexter will first have to stay alive himself.

Dexter the Demon, Dexter the Avenger-whatever he chooses to call himself, the hero of this intelligent, darkly humorous series knows he's a monster who loves slicing people into little pieces. That Dexter limits his killing to "acceptable" victims-usually other serial killers-is designed to keep the reader from having to worry too much about the morality of his avocation. Dexter's just added his 40th victim, a homicidal pedophile, and is eagerly looking ahead to number 41 when he becomes involved in a case through his job as a blood spatter analyst at the Miami-Dade police forensics lab. A man is found with "everything on [his] body cut off, absolutely everything"-a piece of work that makes Dexter's own tidy killings look like child's play. This madman, nicknamed Danco, spends weeks surgically removing his victims' ears, lips, nose, arms, legs, etc., while keeping them alive to watch their own mutilation. Despite a certain professional admiration for Danco's dexterity, Dexter decides to take on the case. It's the contradictions in Dexter's character that make it all work-he's smart, he's funny, he cares for children, and yet he has no normal human responses or emotions. The first book in the series, Darkly Dreaming Dexter, was very well received; this one should be as well, and deservedly so.