Deadlocked

Sookie is summoned to Eric’s house to greet Felipe, King of Louisiana (among others). There she discovers Eric feeding off another woman, who shortly ends up on Eric’s front lawn, dead. The police have already been summoned and the whole situation is suspicious.

Sookie helps Bill Compton investigate the murder and find out the truth of why someone would want to frame Eric. In the meantime, Sookie is dealing with a horde of fairies and the secret fairy charm given to her Gran by Fintan, now entrusted to Sookie. The underworld has found out Sookie possess the charm and everyone wants it.

I hate to say this but I think this series has run its course and is now dying a slow death. I loved the first handful of books in this series but the last couple has been bad. Deadlocked was no exception.  For most of the book, nothing happens. Pages are spent with detailed descriptions of Sookie’s day and nothing happens. There are whole conversations which do nothing to move the plot along. The plotline was convoluted and pulled at a bunch of threads that are finally pulled haphazardly together.

There were no real Eric and Sookie moments and those we do see are disappointing and unfinished, obviously a cliffhanger with the intention of keeping us coming back for more. Their relationship also seems to be in shambles and would have been better to kill it off.  The scenes Eric are in (only a few) he spends in angsty contemplation of the situation his maker has left him, to marry Freyda or stay with Sookie, but big bad Eric cannot seem to make a decision.

There was only a glimpse of Pam in this book and you can always count on Pam’s snarkiness for a few good laughs but the scenes (two) she was in were flat. Ditto for Bill, we get you are in love with Sookie but can’t Charlaine give this character anything else to talk about? Apparently not. It’s starting to feel like a teen angsty series instead of the really great urban fantasy this series started out as.

Besides Sookie’s day to day life (working at Merlotte’s, getting the mail and taking an awful lot of naps), the secondary characters who were always that, get more air time than the original characters. JB du Rone has a bigger cameo than Eric, Bill and Pam.

I was really disappointed with this book but if I’m honest with myself I wasn’t expecting much after the last two. I will read the last book in the series (due out next May) but only because I’ve read all of the other books and I need to see it through to the bloody end, but I am not anticipating it.