Jeff Lindsay

Jeff Lindsay is an American author best known for the Dexter series, which follows Dexter Morgan, a Miami police blood-spatter analyst who moonlights as a serial killer targeting other murderers under a personal code instilled by his adoptive father. The first novel, Darkly Dreaming Dexter, was published in 2004 and became the basis for the Showtime television series Dexter (2006–2013), one of the most acclaimed and discussed crime dramas of its era, later followed by the continuation series Dexter: New Blood and Dexter: Original Sin. Lindsay wrote eight novels in the original book series, continuing the character's story well beyond where the TV adaptation diverged. Readers who came to the character through television should be aware the novels take a distinct, often darker and more interior path than the show, narrated throughout in Dexter's own darkly comic first-person voice. New readers should start with Darkly Dreaming Dexter, both as the series' origin and as the clearest example of Lindsay's blend of psychological thriller and gallows humor. Lindsay's career extends well beyond Dexter. He debuted a decade earlier with Tropical Depression (1994), published under his fuller name, Jeffry P. Lindsay, the first of what became a two-book series about ex-cop Billy Knight, belatedly continued with Red Tide (2015). Around the same period he co-wrote three UFO- and time-travel-themed science fiction thrillers with his wife, writer Hilary Hemingway -- Dreamland (1995) and Dreamchild (1998), plus Time Blender (1997), which added actor Michael Dorn as a third collaborator. After concluding Dexter, Lindsay launched a second ongoing series in 2019: Riley Wolfe, following a master thief and disguise artist pursued across the books by FBI profiler Frank Delgado, four novels in as of The Fourth Rule (2023).