From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dearly Devoted Dexter (2005) is a crime/horror novel by Jeff Lindsay, the second in his series about sociopathic vigilante Dexter Morgan, which has been adapted into the eponymous television series.

Plot introduction

A shadowy, sadistic figure from Sgt. Doakes' past arrives in Miami, and begins preying on his treacherous old U.S. Army colleagues from the Salvadoran Civil War. He possesses a unique method of torture that has earned him the nickname "Dr. Danco": He kidnaps each victim, pumps them full of sedatives, and, over a period of several days, steadily removes their limbs, genitalia and facial features, before leaving them to contemplate their hideous mutilation in front of a carefully placed mirror.

Meanwhile, Dexter, having been forced to suppress his own psychotic urges by the machinations of an increasingly suspicious Doakes, welcomes the distraction and begins to focus on hunting down a possible child killer. However, he finds himself drawn into the case of the mysterious Dr. Danco when his sister Deborah's new boyfriend, detective Kyle Chutsky of Washington, D.C., turns out to be on the torturer's hit list.

Amidst all the chaos, Dexter finds himself accidentally engaged to his girlfriend Rita and begins to have suspicions of Cody (Rita's youngest child) of sociopathic tendencies that Dexter himself had as a child.