Lindsay, Jeffry P. 1952–

(Jeff Lindsay)

PERSONAL:

Born 1952. Married Hilary Hemingway (a writer); children: three daughters. Education: Attended Carnegie Mellon for graduate school.

ADDRESSES:

Home—South Florida.

CAREER:

Author and playwright. Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), FL, program host. Karate champion.

WRITINGS:

Tropical Depression: A Novel of Suspense, D.I. Fine (New York, NY), 1994.

(With wife, Hilary Hemingway) Dreamland: A Novel of the UFO Cover-up, Forge (New York, NY), 1995.

(With Hilary Hemingway) Dreamchild (sequel to Dreamland), Tom Doherty (New York, NY), 1998.

(With Hilary Hemingway) Hunting with Hemingway: Based on the Stories of Leicester Hemingway, Riverhead Books (New York, NY), 2000.

AS JEFF LINDSAY; "DEXTER" SERIES

Darkly Dreaming Dexter, Doubleday (New York, NY), 2004.

Dearly Devoted Dexter, Doubleday (New York, NY), 2005.

Dexter in the Dark, Doubleday (New York, NY), 2007.

Dexter by Design, Doubleday (New York, NY), 2008.

ADAPTATIONS:

Darkly Dreaming Dexter was adapted for audio, read by Nick Landrum, Recorded Books, 2004; the Showtime television series "Dexter," starring Michael C. Hall, was adapted from Darkly Dreaming Dexter.

SIDELIGHTS:

Jeffry P. Lindsay has written a number of books with his wife, Hilary Hemingway—daughter of Leicester and niece of Ernest Hemingway—and has also penned novels as a solo author as well. His first novel is Tropical Depression: A Novel of Suspense, a mystery set in Key West, Florida, featuring Billy Knight, a former policeman who is now working as a charter boat captain after leaving Los Angeles, where his wife and child were killed in a failed hostage situation. He returns to Los Angeles when fellow cop and friend Roscoe McAuley is killed while investigating the suspicious death of his son during a riot.

Lindsay and his wife first collaborated in the writing of the science-fiction thriller Dreamland: A Novel of the UFO Cover-up, in which the main characters are also husband and wife. Stanley Katz is an engineer working on a top-secret project in the Southwest. His wife, Annie, who has lost several babies through miscarriage, is again pregnant, until she realizes that the baby is missing from her womb. Booklist's Emily Melton felt that the authors are convincing in this tale of alien creatures, and called it "a good sci-fi tale full of flying saucers and ripping good action."

The subject of Dreamland's sequel, Dreamchild, is Max, a half-alien, half- human five-year-old. In the novel, aliens are everywhere, and the government is trying to prevent a takeover. Meanwhile, Max's parents are trying to save their marriage, while dealing with their unresponsive child. Candace Smith wrote in Booklist that this story has something for everyone, "alien abductions, UFOs, sex, government cover-ups, scandals, and loads of action."

When Lindsay's wife's mother died in 1997, Hilary Hemingway received a cassette tape of interviews conducted by a professor with her father, Leicester Hemingway. Like his younger brother, Ernest, Leicester had also died by suicide. The tape contains Leicester's account of the brothers' adventures, from attacks by vicious animals to an encounter with a Nazi U-boat, and Lindsay and his wife decided to work these narratives into stories. Marc Seals noted of Hunting with Hemingway: Based on the Stories of Leicester Hemingway in the Journal of Popular Culture that "as an adventure, [the book] … excels. There is something wonderful in a good yarn well told, and this book has these in abundance. This book also makes a contribution to the growing body of myth that surrounds the Hemingway family. Through the eyes of an adoring little brother, it makes Ernest Hemingway seem a bit more human."

In 2004, Lindsay published the first novel in his "Dexter" series, Darkly Dreaming Dexter, which was later adapted for the Showtime television series "Dexter." The slasher novel features protagonist Dexter Morgan, by day a blood-spatter expert of extraordinary talent who works for the Miami Police Department. That talent comes from Dexter's own long history as a serial killer, beginning when he was boy. Dexter's foster father, Detective Harry Morgan, had early on spotted his son's abnormal personality traits and suggested that he do away with the truly wicked of the world. The first victim of Dexter's vigilantism was the hospice nurse who was overdosing his father with morphine. Dexter also has an imaginary spirit friend, Dark Passenger, who assists him in disposing of pedophiles, killers, and sadists. He has never left behind any evidence that might connect him with these killings, but now he is worried. A copycat killer is trying to lure him out from hiding, and with his sister, Deborah, newly assigned to the cases, he does not want a misstep to implicate her.

Library Journal's David Wright compared Lindsay's Dexter to Anne Rice's character Lestat, saying that the novelist brings "the same refreshing ebullience to serial killers" that Rice brought to vampires. Wright called Darkly Dreaming Dexter "a macabre gem that will ap- peal to more than just the Thomas Harris crowd; highly recommended." Booklist contributor David Pitt praised Dexter as one of the genre's "most original, compelling characters to appear in years," calling him "a fascinating narrator, appealing, articulate and ghoulish, all at the same time."

In Lindsay's second novel in the "Dexter" series, Dearly Devoted Dexter, Dexter is on the hunt for a new serial killer, known by the nickname of Dr. Danco, who literally takes his victims apart, one limb at a time, and then leaves them to die in this unfortunate state. When Dexter's foster sister Debbie's new lover, a federal agent named Kyle Chutsky, is nabbed by Dr. Danco, she turns to Dexter for help.

Of Dexter's appeal to readers, Curled Up with a Good Book critic Luan Gaines noted that "Lindsay imbues Dexter's bizarre world with transient normalcy, the reader helplessly rooting for the underdog, the Dark Passenger, challenged to fit into society while pursuing his dark delights, filling our vicarious need for vigilante justice." Of Lindsay's second Dexter novel, Mostly Fiction reviewer Eleanor Bukowsky wrote that "Lindsay's writing is a little less sharp than it was in his first novel, … the plot is wafer thin, and the characters are as insubstantial as the story. What ultimately saves the book is its dark, sardonic, and grotesque humor."

In an interview with Alden Mudge on BookPage, Lindsay talked about how the success of his first novel in the series complicated work on Dearly Devoted Dexter: "Writing at any time is difficult. Because in order to do it you have to leave yourself wide open, which lets in a lot of stuff you don't want to deal with. That's always problematic, dealing with the other stuff and still maintaining focus. I am a total neurotic, so there were times when I was thinking, the first book wasn't very good; why don't I just die? And there were times when I was thinking, how can I write a book as good as the first book? It went back and forth like that."

Lindsay's third novel in the series, Dexter in the Dark, finds Dexter investigating a double homicide at the University of Miami campus, where two female students have been burned and beheaded, and their heads replaced by the ceramic heads of bulls. Meanwhile, a mysterious cult starts stalking Dexter, believing his Dark Passenger to be a threat to them. The story also concerns the training of Cody and Astor Bennett, Dexter's soon-to-be stepchildren who are exhibiting homicidal tendencies similar to Dexter's. "Lindsay has proven himself equal to the task, a macabre stew of murder, mayhem and deserving corpses, Dexter brilliantly sardonic even in the throes of his deepest distress," remarked Gaines in a review of the book for Curled Up with a Good Book.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, July, 1994, West Lukowsky, review of Tropical Depression: A Novel of Suspense, p. 1926; February 15, 1995, Emily Melton, review of Dreamland: A Novel of the UFO Cover-up, p. 1601; May 15, 1998, Candace Smith, review of Dreamchild, p. 1601; May 15, 2004, David Pitt, review of Darkly Dreaming Dexter, p. 1601; May 1, 2005, David Pitt, review of Dearly Devoted Dexter, p. 1534.

Journal of Popular Culture, May, 2004, Marc Seals, review of Hunting with Hemingway: Based on the Stories of Leicester Hemingway, p. 744.

Kirkus Reviews, June 1, 2004, review of Darkly Dreaming Dexter, p. 511.

Library Journal, July, 2000, Michael Rogers, review of Hunting with Hemingway, p. 91; June 15, 2004, David Wright, review of Darkly Dreaming Dexter, p. 59.

Publishers Weekly, May 30, 1994, review of Tropical Depression, p. 39; June 26, 2000, review of Hunting with Hemingway, p. 63; April 19, 2004, review of Darkly Dreaming Dexter, p. 36; May 23, 2005, review of Dearly Devoted Dexter, p. 54.

St. Petersburg Times, July 17, 2005, Jean Heller, review of Dearly Devoted Dexter.

USA Today, March 6, 2008, "‘Dexter’ Author Set ‘the Rules’," p. 7.

Variety, January 7, 2008, "CBS Hopes ‘Dexter’ Slays Audiences."

ONLINE

BookPage,http://www.bookpage.com/ (July 3, 2008), Alden Mudge, "Serial Killer Dexter Morgan Evokes Laughter and Fear."

Bookreporter.com,http://www.bookreporter.com/ (July 3, 2008), Joe Hartlaub, review of Dearly Devoted Dexter; (July 3, 2008), Kathy Weissman, review of Dexter in the Dark.

Curled Up with a Good Book,http://www.curledup.com/ (July 3, 2008), Luan Gaines, review of Dearly Devoted Dexter; (July 3, 2008), Luan Gaines, review of Dexter in the Dark.

MediaVillage.com,http://www.mediavillage.com/ (November 22, 2006), Jacki Garfinkel, "Author Jeff Lindsay Talks about His Beloved Serial Killer Dexter."

Mostly Fiction,http://www.mostlyfiction.com/ (July 15, 2005), Eleanor Bukowsky, review of Dearly Devoted Dexter.

Shots,http://www.shotsmag.co.uk/ (July 3, 2008), Ali Karim, interview with author.