Dead Reckoning

By Charlaine Harris

In this mystery, the eleventh adventure of Sookie Stackhouse we find Sookie with two fae roommates her cousin Claude and Dermot, seemingly happy in her relationship with Eric.

But with her knack for being in trouble's way, Sookie witnesses the firebombing of Merlotte's, the bar where she works. Sookie suspects it to be the action of a supe (supernatural), but her attention is divided she is becoming suspicious of everybody’s behavior and she thinks she is being manipulated by her cousins for reasons of their own, by Eric since she finds that he knows more about her than she realizes. This of course contradicts facts that were revealed in Book 7, ALTOGETHER DEAD when Eric asks about her family because he is in total ignorance of her past

She discovers that her lover Eric Northman and his "child" Pam are plotting to kill the vampire who is now their master. Gradually, Sookie is drawn into the plot-which is much more complicated than she knows.

In this book you find a Sookie you don’t recognize, an Alcide who has been replaced by an alien he acts so out of character and other slightly mutated personalities. Sookie has a very strong asset and that is her telepathy. She barely uses it in the book and she actually wants to rid herself of it.

The question has been asked as to whether Harris is trying to make her characters more like the ones on True Blood the TV series. I hope not because in the series the women and the South especially are dumbed down and weakened. Sookie saves the vamps in Dallas in the books but acts late and inadequately in the series and there are many more similar incidents.

She lives in a rundown dilapidated house that looks like it hasn’t had upkeep in fifty years. Tara’s character has been changed from a businesswoman to one who is TSTL. Too many of the characters live in rundown trailers as if southerners in Louisiana are all redneck and poor. I have not watched this series in about a year so I may be way off.

All in all the way is being paved to change Sookie's romantic life yet again and for no good reason that is apparent.

If there are indeed two more books I hope the real Sookie and Alcide reappear.