By Cynthia Ayala

Hollywood has come to Miami and is shadowing one Dexter Morgan. But one of the stars has her own murdering stalker putting Dexter in a precarious situation, one that only gets worse as his family life starts to dissipate.

Published on September 17, 2013, by Doubleday, Dexter’s Final Cut by Jeff Lindsay is the seventh novel in the critically acclaimed series that follows Dexter Morgan and his dark deeds.

Dexter is losing his edge, or rather Lindsay is. Dexter is still a very strong character, but he’s really one of the few that has a powerful personality which is really saying a lot because typically, serial killers don’t have feelings, but they are very good a mimicking, and Lindsay does a good job getting that across. All the other characters, most of them don’t talk in a coherent manner and it is more than a little annoying to read, especially seven books into the series. The most prominent would be Rita who hasn’t evolved as a character much and still thinks faster than she talks which appears in the text in various half-finished sentences. This is just how she is but after seven books, some coherency would have added to character growth, to her moving on from the pain and brutality that was her previous relationship, especially since she is involved with Dexter. Much of the other minor characters evolution is brushed upon, but again, they are barely there except as colleagues, they have no real attachment to the plot or the main protagonist. Debra has grown since the last novel, and it’s prominent, she still swears like a sailor, but she’s a mother now and that has changed her to some degree, it has allowed her to grow within the text. As for Dexter himself, he is becoming more human in certain aspects of his life, he’s able to connect and feel loss and adoration that he wasn’t really able to feel in the previous novels. He has grown as a character and that only makes him more charismatic of a character to read and follow.

As for the story itself, Lindsay definitely made this one more commercial. Hollywood has come to Miami to shadow Debra and Dexter Morgan for a television show and it is difficult to grasp because while the reader knows why Dexter is so special, no one else does. For the plot, it worked to build tension and it worked as a somewhat substantial plot device. There were times that were unbelievable which is a shame because Lindsay has always been good with creating a great story steeped in realism, making Dexter, the blood splatter analysis a bodyguard, that’s unbelievable in the context of the story. Again, it was a very commercial story about Hollywood starlight’s and while it may have been a good move for story for attraction, it wasn’t as strong as the previous novels because it detracted from some of the realism that has made this a very good series thus far. (★★★☆☆ | C+)