{alltv} Dexter's daddy goes his own way

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TORONTO – For the past 11 months, accusations from fans of TV's Dexter have trailed author Jeff Lindsay everywhere he goes.

And those pleading voices followed him to Toronto last weekend when he read from his latest Dexter novel, the fifth in the series, Dexter is Delicious.

"You killed Rita!'" Lindsay imitates, raising his voice an octave. "And I tell them, 'I didn't kill her. That was the show. The books are different.'"

As played by Michael C. Hall, Dexter Morgan is pop culture's most appealing serial killer since Hannibal Lecter. But unlike Hannibal the Cannibal, Dexter has a strict code he adheres to – he only murders other killers and the most hardened of criminals.

"It worries me a little that Dexter and Hannibal are so popular," he says. "It makes me wonder what the hell is wrong with people.

"But I deliberately set out to make Dexter likable. And let's face it, we all have these moments where we go, 'That son of a bitch deserves to die.' Most of us don't do anything about it. But the idea that there's someone out there that finds these people and takes them out is very appealing."

Since slithering his way into print in 2004's Darkly Dreaming Dexter, Dexter's literary adventures have been wildly different than the TV series that was spun-off two years later.

Case in point: Hall's Dexter married Rita, had a child and seemed, for him, to be settling into a normal life. But in the final seconds of last season's finale, Rita is seen dead in their bathtub, murdered by the Trinity Killer.

"I can't tell you how uncomfortable that made me," Lindsay says. "It's horrible."

But Rita is very much alive in Dexter's print life having just given birth to a little girl (unlike the son of the series) at the start of Dexter is Delicious.

That's just one of the surprises that await fans of the show who've never read the novels.

Brian, The Ice Truck Killer, and Dexter's brother, makes a long-awaited reappearance in the new book (he was killed in the series).

"I've always liked Brian," Lindsay says. "I've always planned to bring him back. He could have come back in almost any of the other books; it just didn't happen."

Another storyline Lindsay pursues in print is the idea that Rita's kids, Cody and Astor, seem poised to follow the same blood-soaked path as duplicitous Dexter, forcing him to be a pseudo murderous guide.

"The show is totally avoiding the whole kids-as-psychopaths storyline," he says, with a slight smile. "I think it's because it's too scary to portray that on television. But to me, it's really appealing to see those tendencies take shape in its younger form."

While Dexter attempts to make sense of life without Rita on the show, his print self struggles to balance family life, the return of his serial-killing brother, Brian, and the emergence of a freaky coven of cannibalistic vampires.

"I thought, after five Dexter books no one is going to accuse me of ripping off Silence of the Lambs if I do cannibalism," he says.

"In a sense, all books are like a newspaper of the time in which it was written and since vampires were going around when I wrote this, they went in. That led to the cannibalism."

But Lindsay appreciates the differences between the series and the books. "I have bad moments where I think, 'My God, I'm doing it different from the TV show; what will people think?' Then I remember this creation is mine."

So has he given any thought to how it will all end for Dexter?

"I fantasize about it," he confesses. "Sometimes I think he'll be caught and get off on a technicality. Maybe he'll be executed. Other times I think," and here he pauses, "I just might kill him myself."