'Dead and Gone' comes with Harris' particular blend of humor. We also find that Sookie's old flame, Bill - a relatively green-behind-the-ears vampire who fought in the Civil War - is back on the scene. It is, Eric explains, a legal technicality otherwise, the new vampire king of Louisiana would have had Sookie shipped off to Las Vegas to read gamblers' minds. Meanwhile, Sookie finds herself 'pledged' - for all practical purposes, engaged - to Eric Northman, the 1,000-year-old ex-Viking who's the vampire sheriff of Shreveport. Is it the work of the Fellowship of the Sun, the hard-core anti-vampire group? At least some people suspect Sookie's rather feckless good-ol'-boy brother, Jason.

No one, however, quite expected a certain werepanther to be murdered in the parking lot of Sookie's workplace, Merlotte's Bar and Grill. Now, however, the shape-shifters decide to announce their presence all at once. In the Sookie Stackhouse universe, vampires made their presence known years ago, after a Japanese company invented TrueBlood, a cheap blood substitute that the Undead can drink straight from the can - sort of like Michelob. That's 'were' as in werewolf, werepanther, weretiger and werefox, all of which have turned up in previous novels. The plot is so entwined with previous volumes, picking up 'Dead and Gone' is a bit like trying to get into Harry Potter by starting with 'The Half-Blood Prince.' If you haven't read any of these novels before, try starting with 'Dead Until Dark' or 'Living Dead in Dallas' instead.įor readers who've already been bitten, however, Harris will not disappoint.Ī lot is going on in 'Dead and Gone.' First, the Weres come out. Harris, however, ratchets up both the Harlequin moments - and the blood content - for 'Dead and Gone,' her ninth novel in the series that inspired the HBO series 'True Blood.' This is, emphatically, not a book for the under 17 crowd, and it's also not a book for newbies. 'Romance with a bite' could apply to any of Charlaine Harris' fantasy novels featuring Sookie Stackhouse, the telepathic waitress from Bon Temps, La. Author: Charlaine Harris Data: Ace Hardcover, 320 pages, $25.95

Dead and Gone by Charlaine Harris