Plot Summary
Dexter Morgan leads a double life: a vigilante serial killer by night and a blood spatter analyst with the Miami Police Department's forensics team by day.
After the events of Dexter in the Dark, Dexter is eager to resume his hobby, but first must endure a honeymoon in Paris with his unsuspecting wife Rita. At an art gallery, Dexter and Rita are introduced to the concept of body parts being used as art by an avant-garde performance piece called "Jennifer's Leg" in which the artist amputates her own limb.
On returning home, Dexter finds that his relationship with his sister, Deborah Morgan, has become strained since she learned of his murderous pastime at the end of the first book. Deborah is a Sergeant detective in the Miami Police Department's Homicide Unit and is torn between loyalty to her brother and their father (who trained Dexter to confine his murderous impulses to other killers, and taught him how to escape detection) and her duty as a police officer to arrest him.
At work, Dexter is called to investigate a gruesome tableau on a local beach, where a pair of bodies have been mutilated and arranged in a display that parodies the state's tourist trade.
At home, Rita is concerned for her children, Cody and Astor, who appear withdrawn and different from normal children. Dexter knows that the two share his pathology (which he calls the Dark Passenger) and has promised to train them to kill those who "deserve it", as his adoptive father, Harry, trained him. Cody is enrolled as a Cub Scout, which Rita believes will help him to bond with normal children. Dexter believes it will help him learn how to pretend to be normal.
Read more about this topic: Dexter By Design
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