It was a fairly quick read. Not too in depth. I felt like we hardly got to meet Rita. Compared to the tv series it was a combination of the first season and the very last season. Which sort of surprised me but also makes a lot of sense. I feel like as a stand alone it would be difficult to get into, but because of watching the show first I already had some idea of dexter which I think was not described well in the book (his look, his speech patterns, etc). For me this was a book where the tv series was better than the book. Still a nice read though.