The Dexter series of television shows started in America in October 2006 and is still going strong although Showtime who make the series has recently announced that series 8 is likely to be the last.

The show is based on a series of books by Jeff Lindsey and follows the career of Dexter Morgan (played by Michael C Hall) who to the outside world is an upstanding citizen and blood spatter analyst for the Miami Homicide Team. Outside of work however he is a serial killer albeit one with a conscience in that he generally only kills those he considers of sufficiently bad nature mainly various types of criminal.

Dexter also provides an occasional commentary on his actions and justifications i.e his actual thoughts in contrast to what his actions and conversations seem to reveal.

The other main characters in the series are his sister Deborah who is a quite foul mouthed detective again with Miami Homicide, his girlfriend Rita and her two children and various police colleagues whose importance in the action varies through the series. Also in the show is Dexters father who is actually dead but appears on screen at various points particularly in times of stress as Dexter is able to confide in him. It seems Dexters father was aware of his secret life while he was alive and it was he who guided him to killing only those who 'deserved' it.

The first series follows the career of 'The Ice Truck Killer' a new serial killer in Miami who leaves no tell tale blood behind for Dexter to examine.

I won't discuss the subsequent series plots as this would spoil the first series if you haven't seen it. I am currently watching series 5 and can highly recommend all the series so far, in my opinion the second has been the strongest and the third probably the weakest, all well worth a look though. My only reservation would be that it is not suitable for children or the squeemish! Some of the language is fruity and there are some graphic scenes.

The show was aired in the UK on FXUK only but the first 5 series are available to buy on Amazon starting at about £10.99 for the first series which is pretty good value.