Summer

14 January 2009

LIVING DEAD IN DALLAS: A Sookie Stackhouse/Southern Vampire Mystery - Charlaine Harris

The Sookie Stackhouse/Southern Vampire series is among the top ten, if not top five, of my favorite series. I read this second in the series a long while back, but have decided to add them to my keeper shelf as audioboks. The narrator, Johanna Parker, is absolutely superb for this series. I rented this one from RecordedBooks and will keep it with a coupon I received.
Sookie is trying to get along in her small corner of the world in BonTemps, Louisiana. She has a job she enjoys and a boyfriend, Bill Compton, in her life. He happens to be a vampire, but that's okay. She happens to be able to read minds and it's a treat to be with Bill since his mind is completely blank to her and he treats her wonderfully.
The drawback with being attached to vampires and with her ability, or disability as she calls it, is that she is often requested to help Eric, the sheriff of this particular area of vampires.
Sookie is loaned out to go to Dallas Texas to help another big dawg vampire find out what happened to one of his nestmates. This seems simple enough, but Sookie and company find themselves enmeshed in a soon to be battle with a new church called The Fellowship of the Sun. The followers of this church don't think that vampires should be allowed to exist.
There is another mystery to solve, too. Sookie's friend, Lafayette, the flamboyant short order cook at the bar where Sookie works, has been found dead in the car of a local law officer. Sookie isn't especially fond of the officer, but knows he didn't commit the murder and she did consider Lafayette a friend and wants to do what she can to help find his killer.
And then there's the maenad....In Greek mythology, Maenads (Greek: Μαινάδες) were the inspired and frenzied female worshipers of Dionysus, the Greek god of mystery, wine, and intoxication, the Roman god Bacchus. Their name literally translates as "raving ones". So this makes for an interesting storyline....

All told, this was a great listen. It made carpooling with DH quite bearable. He enjoyed the story, too.

Five southern vampire beans.....

6 comments:

Mary (Bookfan) said...

That's so great your hubby liked it too!

My husband read Last Days of Summer (my recent read) and really liked it. It's nice to discuss a book with him once in a while.

Vickie said...

Mary: It was a HUGE relief and it made the carpooling, which I had to give up my precious alone time for, much better. He is now a confirmed Charlaine Harris fan. Listening to ICE COLD GRAVE now and he digs it.

The Bookworm said...

sounds great, I've been wanting to read this author for some time now.
Glad you enjoyed the audio book.
http://thebookworm07.blogspot.com/

Vickie said...

Naida: This is the best series! I hope you like it!

Literary Feline said...

I've been trying to talk my husband into trying this series, but it might be a little to romancy for him. But then, who can tell? He's surprised me before.

Vickie said...

Wendy: It's definitely more than romance. DH dug all of the action and dialogue. It perked him right up. = )