DEXTER IS DELICIOUS

Fatherly affection, empathy, guilt—could everyone’s favorite law-enforcement sociopath (Dexter by Design, 2009, etc.) be turning soft?

As he gawps at his newborn daughter Lily Anne, Dexter Morgan feels a rush of unfamiliar feelings and familiarly satirical thoughts about how sappy this all is—that is before he’s snatched away from the hospital by a hurry call from Sgt. Deborah Morgan, his adopted sister. Ransom Everglades student Samantha Aldovar has disappeared, leaving behind only an enormous blood spatter that Dexter soon establishes isn’t even her type. While Dexter and Debs sweat to figure out whether the crime scene points to kidnapping or murder, other complications sprout up. The Miami-Dade PD can’t ask Tyler Spanos, Samantha’s best bud, about her whereabouts because she’s gone missing too. In fact, as a grisly discovery in the Everglades soon confirms, Tyler’s been killed and eaten at a hideous private barbecue—presumably by the self-styled Vlad, né Robert Acosta, the spoiled son of untouchable county commissioner Joe Acosta, and the rest of the cannibal crew who assemble at that exclusive South Beach club, Fang. What can Dexter do to make Miami safe once more for normal killers like himself? And, saddled as he now is with a sense that he’s “Dexter 2.0,” made over by a sincere desire to stay on the straight and narrow, will he have the gumption to do it?

Have no fear: All those tender feelings don’t keep Dexter from breaking into a walk-in refrigerator, attacking a pirate ship and preventing Debs from turning into a late-night snack. Ghoulish fun for like-minded souls.