We're all avid readers here at The Editorial Department, and while reading for entertainment is a favorite pastime, it never hurts to take a more critical look at the pages (or e-ink) in our hands. This review of the First 50 pages is an exercise in analyzing story craft, but also contains a special offer on editing services. Be sure to click the "read more" to find all the details.
Darkly Dreaming Dexter (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard)

Flap Copy: He's handsome and charming, but something in his past has made him abide by a different set of rules. He's a serial killer whose one golden rule makes him immensely likable: He only kills bad people.
Ross's Take: Though Darkly Dreaming Dexter was a book that for me left a lot to be desired from a craft standpoint, there's a good deal the author does really well in terms of pacing, story setup, drawing readers into the world of this story and setting the stage for a series of books that later became a successful TV series.
Chapter 1: The book opens with this: Moon. Glorious Moon. Full, fat Reddish moon, the night as light as day, the moonlight flooding down across the land and bringing joy, joy, joy.
First, a confession...Had this book not been recommended to me I probably would have stopped reading right there. The last thing I want out of a crime thriller/dark comedy hybrid is something that felt like a labored effort at literary style. But fortunately, this line isn't really reflective of the tone of the narrative. The writing is, in general, much more straightforward and down to earth. Prety darn readable, actually.
A more important point is that by one page into the scene, readers see that protagonist Dexter Morgan is in serial killer mode and stalking his prey. It looks like things are likely to end badly for Father Donovan and though readers don't yet know of the golden rule the flap copy alludes to, it becomes pretty clear pretty quick that this priest is no saint and may well deserve what seems like an inevitable demise. A tense scene follows as Dexter ambushes the man and brings him back to some kind of lair, where the rotting corpses of seven children are waiting. It's not stated explicitly but the implication is that Father Donovan killed and perhaps sexually abused these children and probably others. The 13-page chapter ends with Dexter telling readers simply that he "went to work."