Deadlocked, by Charlaine Harris

(hb; 2012: thirteenth entry in the Sookie Stackhouse series)


From the inside flap:

"Growing up with telepathic abilities, Sookie Stackhouse realized early on that thre are things she'd rather not know. And now that she's an adult, she also realizes that some things she knows about, she'd rather not see - like Eric Northman feeding off another woman. A younger one.

"There's a thing or two she'd like to say about that, but she has to keep quiet - Felipe de Castro, the vampire King of Louisiana (and Arkansas and Nevada), is in town. It's the worst possible time for a human body to show up in Eric's front yard - especially the body of the woman whose blood he just drank.

"Now it's up to Sookie and Bill, the official Area Five investigator, to solve the murder. Sookie thinks that, at least this time, the dead girl's fate has nothing to do with her. But she is wrong. She has an enemy, one far more devious than she would ever suspect, who's set out to make Sookie's world crashing down."


Review:

Deadlocked is a good read - as usual, Harris balances her characters' tangled histories, their interactions and other plot elements into an entertaining book.

That said, while Deadlocked wraps up key/ongoing elements and characters (all the while opening up new ones), Harris should consider ending the series within the next few books - I understand the Sookieverse characters are beloved by many, but Harris' last few books have been generally flat, humor-wise, and the characters' dilemmas (along with Sookie's flash-temper) are beginning to wear thin, feel redundant and/or read like trifling affairs, despite Harris' consistently solid writing.

Deadlocked is worth checking out from the library, perhaps worth purchasing, if done so at a cut-rate price.