Dead and Gone
Sookie Stackhouse Series, Book 9
Southern Vampire Mysteries

by Charlaine Harris

     Dead and Gone continues the saga of Sookie Stackhouse, the psychic heroine of this series.  This time the perils in Bon Temps, Louisiana are extremely violent, which is quite a departure for the usually charming series.  Yet if you are a fan of the HBO series True Blood, which is based on these novels, you probably won't be disappointed.  If this is your first foray into the Sookie Stackhouse novels, you also will likely not be disappointed.

The book isn't without merit, and it certainly is busy.  It's always good to revisit characters we have learned to care about in earlier books.  Sookie is still Sookie, although perhaps a paler version of herself.

In this book, the weres and the shifters have decided it’s their turn to declare their presence in reality to mortals.  Although this doesn't present major problems in Bon Temps at first, things quickly go from bad to worse, and indeed, dead to deader and dead to gone.

As the violence begins, Sookie does not yet realize there is about to be a full scale war with very strong and previously unknown un-humans, with Sookie caught in the middle and unsure of what to do.  New characters are brought in without old story lines being resolved satisfactorily, and it felt to me as if there was too much going on at once. involving too many characters. to keep it all straight without having to go back and reread previous paragraphs, if not whole chapters.

People who are diehard fans will still really want to read this book for themselves; I wouldn't for a minute suggest they don't buy it and read it.  It was just a bit of a disappointment to me, but many others will still love it, because they can still say "I Love Sookie" and mean it. The book is still unique and the humor playful and cheeky.  I hope true fans of Charlaine Harris will give it a chance and enjoy it!

Reviews of other titles in this series

Dead Until Dark, Book 1    [review]
Dead to the World, Book 4    [review]
All Together Dead, Book 7    [review]
From Dead to Worse, Book 8   [review]
Dead and Gone, Book 9   [review]
Deadlocked, Book 12    [review]