Dead as a Doornail by Charlaine Harris

I'd been able to read minds all my life. The ability is no great gift. Most peoples' minds don't bear reading. Their thoughts are boring, disgusting, disillusioning, but very seldom amusing. At least [Vampire] Bill had helped me learn how to cut out some of the buzz. Before he'd given me some clues, it had been like tuning in to a hundred radio stations simultaneously. Some of them had come in crystal clear, some had been remote, and some, like the thoughts of shape-shifters, had been full of static and obscurity. But they'd all added up to cacophony. No wonder lots of people had treated me as a half-wit.

Vampires were silent. That was the great thing about vamps, at least from my point of view: They were dead.

-Dead as a Doornail

Oh, Sookie. Remember when things were simple, and the only thing Sookie had to worry about was her burgeoning relationship with Vampire Bill - well, that and that pesky serial killer? By the onset of Dead as a Doornail, the 5th novel in the Sookie Stackhouse series, our heroine has become hopelessly enmeshed in the supernatural community, and her life is just getting more and more complicated.

There's a new threat to Sookie's world in Dead as a Doornail: someone is shooting shifters. This hits particularly close to home now that Sookie's brother, Jason, has been tentatively welcomed into the shifter community. And after fire is set to her home, Sookie has to face the fact that someone wants her dead as well. Not to mention that Merlotte's has a new vampire-pirate(!) bartender, Alcide Herveaux is pushing Sookie's involvement in the campaign for a new leader of the Werewolf community, and Vampire Bill has a new girlfriend. Definitely complicated for our girl Sookie.

The plot really rolls along in this one, which I found to be the biggest page-turner of the series since the first book. Now, once you're about three-quarters in, things start to become a bit easier to figure out, but Charlaine Harris does an admirable job of keeping the reader guessing for the bulk of the book. The confluence of these different supernatural communities and persons, all with their different allegiances and motivations, makes it challenging to suss out a culprit for quite a while. It was definitely an enjoyable read.

That having been said, I was a little disappointed in the route Harris went with Alcide Herveaux. When he was first introduced, Alcide seemed like a strong match for Sookie, particularly once we learned how flawed (to put it kindly) Bill was. By this book, Alcide has become much less sympathetic, which I think is too bad. I'll be curious to see whether Alcide can redeem himself in the future, or if Harris is more interested in the new romantic interest she introduced in Dead as a Doornail (whom I didn't find terribly exciting, to be honest). If not, I'll be happy if we get more of the ever-fascinating Eric.

Up next: I've started reading Susan Orlean's book of essays, The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup.