Now that Dexter the TV series is off air, is the Dark Passenger within you missing the daily quota of maim and murder, mutilation and mystery? As you wait for the next season of Dexter on STAR World, you might want to pick up the book that started it all...

What: Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay, (published by Orion UK, a Hachette UK company, 2004.)

Foreword: Dexter Morgan is a forensic blood spatter pattern analyst with the Miami-Dade police department. He leads a normal enough life, is close to his foster sister Deborah, has a girlfriend, Rita, and is quite fond of her children. Oh, and he’s a serial killer.

But there’s more to Dexter — he only kills serial killers, child rapists and other dangerous sadists.

The plot: The first novel in the Dexter series begins with the Miami police investigating a string of murders of prostitutes, where the killer chops up the bodies and leaves them neatly wrapped up for the cops to find. But there’s no work for Dexter on this case — because despite all the killing and cutting up, there’s just no blood.

Torn between his admiration for this “artistic” killer and his desire to find and kill him, Dexter also needs to find out why he seems to know how and when the killer will strike next.

Written in the first person, the book is a page-turner from the cover. The best parts are when Dexter describes the handiwork of the killer with tender admiration as well as when he talks about his Dark Passenger — the name he’s given his knife-happy voice within.

Then there’s Harry’s Code, a set of rules by which Dexter kills, set down by his foster father. Harry, also a Miami cop, is dead but it’s his code that helps Dexter stay above suspicion even as he goes about town slicing up the dregs of society.

There’s too much whining by Dexter’s cop sister Deborah, who wants to prove herself as a detective. But she seems to believe that her only ticket to success is piggybacking on her brother’s brainwork.

t2 verdict: Pick up the book for a thrilling ride into the dark side of the moon. Only, don’t expect a literary treat.

PS: Darkly Dreaming Dexter is followed by Dearly Devoted Dexter, Dexter in the Dark and Dexter by Design.