Darkly Dreaming Lindsay

Jeff Lindsay, whose DARKLY DREAMING DEXTER was greeted with praise by many within the crime fiction community, recently spoke to SHOTS Assistant editor Ali Karim about the book, his previous forays into fiction writing, and how he wrote the book in a bit of a vacuum:

**

So what made you decide to write about this unusual serial killer Dexter Morgan?**

I don’t know – it just came to me. I was speaking at a business

booster’s lunch, I don’t know why, and I looked out at the crowd, and

thought, “serial murder isn’t always a bad thing.” Just popped into my

head, can’t explain it.

   

Did you read extensively within the serial killer sub-genre before embarking upon Darkly Dreaming Dexter?

No, not a thing. Several reviewers have commented on the fact that Dexter

“breathes life into a tired genre.” If true, it’s because I had no idea

it was tired. I don’t read any of them. I guess I should now.

 

And what do you make of the works of Thomas Harris?

I really liked The Silence Of The Lambs. But I saw the movie first. I read the book later and thought it was pretty good.

Although much as I adore Ali, he gave me the best inadvertent laugh with this exchange:

And were you aware that you were ploughing a similar furrow as the Grand Guignol tradition of turn-of-the century French theatre?

Well, I hadn’t thought of it that way. I was thinking more like Pliny the Elder.

The sequel, DEARLY DEVOTED DEXTER, will be out this summer.