Dexter's Final Cut: A Novel

by Jeff Lindsay Narrated by Jeff Lindsay

Overview

With 1.7 million copies of the Dexter novels sold, and ever-increasing critical acclaim, Jeff Lindsay returns to his groundbreaking and beloved character with his most entertaining book yet. Get ready for a grisly send-up of Hollywood, and a full dose of dark Dexter wit.

Lights. Camera. Mayhem. You won't find this story on television.

Hollywood gets more than it bargained for when television's hottest star arrives at the Miami Police Department and develops an intense, professional interest in a camera-shy blood spatter analyst named Dexter Morgan.

Mega-star Robert Chase is famous for losing himself in his characters. When he and a group of actors descend on the Miami Police Department for "research," Chase becomes fixated on Dexter Morgan, the blood spatter analyst with a sweet tooth for doughnuts and a seemingly average life. To perfect his role, Chase is obsessed with shadowing Dexter's every move and learning what really makes him tick. There is just one tiny problem . . . Dexter's favorite hobby involves hunting down the worst killers to escape legal justice, and introducing them to his special brand of playtime. It's a secret best kept out of the spotlight and away from the prying eyes of bloated Hollywood egos if Dexter wants to stay out of the electric chair. The last thing he needs is bright lights and the paparazzi. . . but even Dexter isn't immune to the call of fame.

Jeff Lindsay's razor sharp, devilish wit, and immaculate pacing prove that he is in a class of his own, and this new novel is his most masterful creation yet.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171785284
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	09/17/2013
Series:	Dexter , #7
Edition description:	Unabridged
Sales rank:	1,033,103

Read an Excerpt

Chaptetr One

It all started so peacefully, just a few short weeks ago, on a lovely day in early autumn.

I had driven in to work as I always did, through the happy carnage that is rush hour in Miami. It had been a bright and pleasant day: sun shining, temperature in the seventies, the other drivers cheerfully honking their horns and screaming death threats, and I'd steered through it with a blissful feeling of belonging.

I had pulled into a spot in the parking lot at police HQ, still completely unaware of the lurking terror that awaited me, and carefully carried a large box of doughnuts into the building and up to the second floor. I'd arrived at my desk punctually, at my usual time. And I made it all the way into a seated position in my chair, a cup of vile coffee in one hand and a jelly doughnut in the other, before I ever for a moment suspected that today would be anything other than one more day of peaceful routine among the newly dead of Our Fair City.

And then the phone on my desk began to buzz, and because I was stupid enough to answer it, everything changed forever.

"Morgan," I said into the receiver. And if I'd known what was coming I would not have said it so cheerfully.

Someone on the other end made a throat-­clearing noise, and with a jolt of surprise I recognized it. It was the sound Captain Matthews made when he wanted to call attention to the fact that he was about to make an important pronouncement. But what momentous declaration could he possibly have now, for me, before I even finished one doughnut, and why would he speak it on the phone to a mere forensics wonk?

"Ahem, uh, Morgan," the captain said. And then there was silence.

"This is Morgan," I said helpfully.

"There's a, um," he said, and cleared his throat again. "I have a special assignment. For you. Can you come up to my office? Right now," he said. There was another slight pause, and then, most baffling of all, he added, "Uh. Please." And then he hung up.

I stared at the phone for a long moment before I replaced it in its cradle. I was not sure what had just happened, or what it meant: "Come up to my office right now"? Captains do not hand out special assignments to blood-­spatter analysts, and we do not visit captains' offices socially, either. So what was this about?

My conscience was clean--­most mythical objects are--­but I felt a small twinge of unease anyway. Could this be trouble--­perhaps a confrontation over some emerging evidence of my Wicked Ways? I always cleaned up thoroughly--­No Body Part Left Behind!--­and in any case, it had been quite a while since I had done anything at all worth not talking about. In fact, it had just recently started to seem like much too long, and the past few evenings I had been fondling my little candidates list and thinking about a new Playdate. My last Enchanting Encounter had been several months ago, and I certainly deserved another soon--­unless I had somehow been discovered. But as I thought back on that wonderful evening, I could remember no slipup, no lazy shortcut, nothing but painstaking perfection. Had Somebody Somehow found Something anyway?

But no: It wasn't possible. I had been meticulously neat, as always. Besides, if my handiwork had been detected, I would not have received a polite invitation to come chat with the captain--­with an actual "please" tacked onto it! I would instead be looking up at the Special Response Team clustered around my desk, peering at me through their laser-­guided telescopic sights and begging me to try something.

There was clearly some other, simpler explanation for why Captain Matthews...

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