Dexter Is Delicious

Dexter Is Delicious

Author	Jeff Lindsay
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Series	Dexter Morgan
Genre	Crime novel
Publisher	Orion Books Limited
Publication date	July 2010
Media type	Print (Hardback)
Pages	368
ISBN	978-0-385-53235-8
Preceded by	Dexter by Design
Followed by	Double Dexter

Dexter Is Delicious is the fifth novel written by Jeff Lindsay, and the fifth book in the Dexter Morgan book series. The book was released in the UK on July 8, 2010 and September 7, 2010 in the United States.

The book contains elements of cannibalism. Lindsay said of the research he put into writing the novel, "There are cannibal chat groups...just dying to give you a recipe for how to prepare and cook human flesh."^[1]

Plot

The book begins nine months after the end of Dexter by Design with the birth of Lily Anne Morgan, the daughter of Dexter and Rita Morgan. His daughter's birth has brought remarkable changes in Dexter; apart from feeling genuine love and emotions for the first time he also does not feel his Dark Passenger's compulsion to kill and vows to swear off his dark hobby in order to be a better father for his daughter. Soon after Dexter is called to a crime scene by his sister Deb, who is in the middle of a jurisdictional fight with the FBI who claim that a kidnapping has taken place. Dexter believes that the large quantity of blood found there was planted, and that the missing girl in question is faking her disappearance in order to get money from her parents. Dexter runs tests and discovers that the blood type does not match the missing girl, Samantha Aldovar. Deb and Dex go to the private school Samantha attends and talk to her principal, who at first is reluctant to divulge any information. This changes when the principal discovers that Tyler Spanos, a wild child and Samantha's friend, is also missing. Subsequent interviews with their friends indicate that they were both befriended by a young man with teeth filed down like fangs, and that only a few dentists in Miami offered such a service. Their prime suspect is Bobby Acosta, the son of Joe Acosta, a wealthy city official, whose influence has already rescued Bobby from felony prosecutions.

Dexter receives a surprise one day bringing Cody and Astor home from school; waiting for him is his brother Brian, whom Dexter last saw at the end of Darkly Dreaming Dexter. Brian quickly ingratiates himself with Dexter's family, who rapidly start to adore him much to Dexter's dismay. Dex soon receives another call from his sister and arrives at a crime scene where someone was apparently cooked and eaten. DNA from the gnawed bones matches that of Tyler Spanos. One of the detectives working under Deb uses his contacts and arrests two Haitian men who swear that they saw Bobby Acosta leaving Tyler's car at a known chop shop. Deb and Dex arrest Victor Chapin, another young man with artificial fangs, but they are forced to release him when a public defender shows up. Dexter, in a fit of overprotective fury over his daughter, stalks Chapin and kills him. Just before dying, Chapin admits to having taken part in eating Tyler Spanos. Things get worse when the remains of Deke, Deb's obnoxious partner, are found partially eaten. Rummaging through a nearby trash bin, Dexter finds Deke's blood-sodden shirt and a souvenir chip from a local goth nightclub called "Fang".

Dex and Deb force their way into the club, but shortly after finding Bobby Acosta they are thrown out by the club's irate manager. Deb resolves to wait until everyone leaves and makes Dexter break in to search for Samantha. While searching, Dexter remembers that he had previously considered the manager of Fang as a potential "playmate" (victim), because of a large number of migrants who vanished after working at the club. Dexter eventually finds Samantha in a large refrigerator; but, rather than follow Dexter to freedom, Samantha locks them both inside. Samantha then reveals that she desires to be eaten, and that she and Tyler shared the same fetish and volunteered to let the cannibals cook and eat them.

Dex and Samantha are then taken to a trailer in the Everglades, where they are left with only a jug of water. While drinking the water Dexter and Samantha become euphoric and eventually have sex multiple times, despite recognizing that the water is laced with MDMA ("Ecstasy"). Shortly afterward Deb and the Miami PD arrive (thanks to a tracer Deb's boyfriend Chutsky placed on the van before it departed the club) and arrest the cannibals, except for the club manager, who is killed. Samantha, irate at being rescued, issues a thinly-veiled threat to Dexter: as revenge for ruining her fantasy, she will say Dexter raped her.

The next day Deb approaches Dexter and tells him that Samantha has run off again. She and Dexter approach Joe Acosta and urge him to get Bobby to turn himself in, so that Samantha can be recovered – even though it will likely mean Bobby will avoid prison time. Bobby's father refuses to turn his son in, but his trophy wife Alana, Bobby's stepmother, privately reveals that he is at an abandoned amusement park that his father owns. Deb, Dex and Chutsky arrive at the park and begin searching it; eventually the three are caught and the leader of the cannibal "coven" is revealed to be Alana Acosta. Deb and Chutsky are taken away leaving Dexter to watch Alana grill a slice of a semi-conscious Samantha. As Alana approaches Dexter to begin cutting and cooking him, one of Alana's guards guns her down as well as two other guards. Dexter's savior is revealed to be Brian, who had started working for the cannibals a few weeks prior. He cuts Dexter loose and reluctantly helps him rescue Deb and Chutsky. Whilst fleeing they check on Samantha, who is dying of her wounds; to comfort the troubled girl, Dexter assures her that her flesh was "delicious," allowing her to die happy. Chutsky decides to part ways with Deb because he failed her and had nearly gotten her killed. Upon waking up on the way to the hospital Deb reveals that she is pregnant.

The book ends with Deb preparing to give birth despite Chutsky's carefully orchestrated disappearance. Dexter, furthermore, decides that even though he now feels emotions like normal people, he can't stand by and let people be preyed upon when he can do something about it. He decides that the best he can do for his sister right now is to honor an earlier request of hers and "take care" of Bobby Acosta.

References