ISBN: 9780441017157
Sookie Stackhouse book #9
I bought this book.

The last book in the Sookie series was a palate cleanser, but this one doesn’t shape up like a traditionally formed mystery story. It doesn’t need to however, as now Sookie is official embroiled enough in the paranormal world that even when she doesn’t stumble into or seek out danger, it will come to her.

The first thing readers will notice is that Sookie has a lot of problems in this book. Some of them are external, but mostly she’s struggling to deal with the series so far. Unlike other urban fantasy heroines Sookie is not okay with being a killer, not even when it’s to save her own life. That she’s had to make that choice before is weighing heavily on her. In fact, it’s pretty clear in Dead and Gone that Sookie’s suffering from full on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

So when her sister-in-law, Crystal is found crucified in Merlott’s parking lot and her great-grandfather, the fairy prince Niall, gives her cryptic warnings about his enemies seeking her out, and even worse, Eric, Sookie’s on-and-off vampire romance (who now remembers what happened when he was under a spell and they almost had a real relationship) pulls Sookie into vampire politics without her knowledge, Sookie is unable to really handle things. Raw, emotional, and on the edge of a break down, Sookie still has to try to clear her brother Jason’s name (again), deal with the backlash of the shifters coming out to the public, defend herself from a vampire and FBI agents who want to force her into their service, face the betrayal of people she thought were her friends, and dodge fairy assassins, which is the scariest of all.

There’s a serious emotional load in Dead and Gone, possibly the darkest Sookie book yet. While this does take up a large part of the book, there’s other plots too, woven back and forth and ultimately giving Sookie little time to handle any threat, much less deal with her own issues. Some readers might not be okay with the darker notes to Sookie’s voice. But others will be able to recognize Dead and Gone as the natural, and compared to some other urban fantasy series more honest, progression of Sookie as a character. In a way she takes on a beaten puppy dog feel, and many readers will sympathize all the stronger with Sookie as she reevaluates everything her life has become so far.

ISBN-13: 9780441015894

I have to admit I found this addition to the Sookie Stackhouse series less than stellar. The writing is solid, of course, and Harris is excellent at creating real-feeling character as usual. But there wasn’t any overlapping plot, instead there were a series of wrap ups of ongoing plots, like a checklist, one after the other.

First, Sookie discovers a long lost relative who approaches her through Eric. Then on the way home someone tries to kill her, revealing a full scale assassination attempt not just against her, but against everyone linked to the warring local werewolf packs. By 140 pages in the whole packs-at-war situation is mostly resolved, thanks to Sookie, but the vampire situation flares up. This conflict too, not only ends far before the actual end of the book, but there’s a closed-eye approach to the adventure and fight scenes that renders them weak.

The book isn’t bad, as far as furthering the adventures of Sookie, and reflecting the massive changes that she and the people around her are going through while trying to recover from Katrina. But it’s not necessarily interesting to people who aren’t already emotionally invested in Sookie and her crew.

Perhaps From Dead to Worse is a cleansing book, clearing away the slate of old loose ends and making way for dramatic new adventures. But it just feels like the progress is minimized and halting rather than being an exciting new volume of a typically bardic tale.