Club Dead by Charlaine Harris *****
Once again I’m only going to tell you what you can get off of the back cover. As in the previous 2 books in this series the body count and the mess is there as well as the emotional and the funny. This is the book where we really encounter some issues with Bill and Sookie’s relationship. Namely that Bill is in another state with an ex-honey and Sookie doesn’t know where he is. Sookie ends up going to Jackson, Mississippi to rescue her cheating beau by mingling with the crowd at what the vampires call “Josephine’s” and everyone else calls “Club Dead”. It’s a little all-magical creatures bar where the elite of the under-underworld go and hang out, suck down some synthetic blood, and feel no pressure to dress up for the tourists like they do at Fangtasia (Eric’s vamp tourist bar in Shreveport).
As this is strictly a no tourist bar (with some rather laughably phrased rules) Sookie needs a guide and someone to introduce her. She needs someone to either vouch for her otherness or to be other and say that she is his date. As Bill is missing this gives Harris a chance to bring in a rather interesting Werewolf by the name of Alcide. Good looking and the opposite of Bill it brings up some interesting things for Sookie. Also, Sookie begins to question her nature more. She wonders about her inherent goodness or whether she really does have a darker side. The reader begins to really see that Sookie may not come through this series in such a safe somewhat blood-spattered lily of the valley sort of mental state. Sookie definitely becomes much more complex psychologically than she had been before. I found that I really enjoyed this book. Really, I’m spending too much money on these considering I have no money. But they leave me wanting more.