In Darkly Dreaming Dexter, the first book in the Dexter Series, we meet Dexter Morgan. A charming man who works for the Miami police Department as a blood splatter analyst and just happens to be a serial killer, but a serial killer
with rules and his own code. You see Dexter only kills criminals who have escaped the justice system.
Dexter works alongside his adoptive sister Debra Morgan, who in this book is working in vice, dressing up as a prostitute in order to arrest johns. When murdered prostitutes start showing up Debra see it as a way to move up the ladder at
work and leave vice behind.
Dexter goes about his life as a co-worker, boyfriend, and serial killer. When Dexter starts helping Debra with his unique insight into the mind of a serial killer he starts feeling as if someone is watching him and when messages are left for him by the killer he starts getting flashbacks to his childhood. Memories that he had forgotten to cope with a violent childhood.
When they discover that the killer is freezing the bodies in an ice cream truck the race is on to catch him, but when his sister goes missing during the search Dexter winds up visiting a storage container that he has suddenly remembered from his childhood. Arriving there he finds his sister strapped to a table, the killer standing near her, about to make her his next victim. However, Dexter is wrong in that the killer intends to kill Debra. He wants Dexter to kill her himself.
Dexter remembers that he had a brother and suddenly everything becomes clear. The killer is his long lost brother Brian who like Dexter enjoys killing. Brian wants Dexter to kill Debra thus reuniting the two brothers. Dexter fights his urge to kill Debra and in the end loyalty to his adoptive sister wins as he saves her from Brian. Unfortunately, Brian manages
to escape.
Darkly Dreaming Dexter is a fast past mystery/thriller with plot twist and turns.