"All Together Dead"

"All Together Dead"
Book 7 of the Southern Vampire Series
by Charlaine Harris

Once again I dive into the world of telepath/part fairy Sookie Stackhouse. Sookie is a bar maid from Bon Temps, Louisiana that has a special gift/curse of telepathy and can hear people's thoughts, but only Human people. You see, in Sookie's world, vampires have "come out of the coffin," which is to say they have revealed themselves to the world and want to live alongside humans. With the invention of synthetic blood (True Blood) they no longer have to hunt humans for food. So humans and vamps live side by side, but that's not all. All sorts of creatures from the supernatural world live in the world, only they are waiting to see how the vamps fare before revealing themselves.

Sounds simple, right? Not really, especially not for Sookie, because with Sookie's curse she has never been able to maintain a relationship with a fellow human. Then walks in Bill Compton a vampire from the civil war era. Vamps seem to be blank when it comes to the brainwaves Sookie tunes in on. So she fell in love with Bill and they dated for a while. Then Bill went back to his former lover/maker and this pretty much ended their relationship, then to make matters worse the she finds that the Vampire Queen of Louisiana actually commanded Bill to seduce her because her gift could benefit the queen. Sookie then found herself working for the vamps and solving mysteries, but with Bill and her finished she dated other people, a werewolf and a weretiger. The latest, Quinn, a weretiger seems to be THE relationship.

In this latest episode in Sookie's life Louisiana has just been ravaged by Hurricane Katrina. I should mention here that the author, Charlaine Harris, did a very good tribute to the devastation and the rebuilding that hit Louisiana during this "real life" event. This book has some really nice references to the troubles still affecting that area of the U.S.

The world's Vampire community has decided to hold a major trade show, this trade show also includes some major events that affect the vampire world. The main event is the trial of the Queen of Louisiana to decide whether she is guilty of murder in the death of her husband, the King of Arkansas. As you may recall in the last book the King tried to kill the Queen and then he would take over both states, but Sookie foiled that plan and the King got offed.

The trade show or summit is being held on the shores of Lake Michigan in a newly built vampire-friendly hotel built to look like the Great Pyramid of Giza. With all the vampires in one place this seems like a perfect place for the vamp hunting Fellowship of the Sun Church to strike. Also many vampires don't want the Queen of Louisiana to succeed in her trial. So Sookie has to solve not one by many mysteries as she "enjoys" being with the Queen at the summit.

While this book was not one of the better books in the series, it did provide a nice homage to the victims of Katrina, and did have some mysteries that featured some serious twists and turns. I'm ready for the next book now.