author : Charlaine Harris

Sookie Stackhouse is a waitress in a small-town bar. She has a disability: she can read minds, and it drives her crazy. So when Bill the mainstreaming vampire walks into the bar, and she finds she can't read his mind at all, Sookie falls in love. But then waitresses start getting murdered, and it looks like there might be a vampire connection. Sookie doesn't believe it's Bill, although it might be one of his nasty vampire friends, so she starts investigating to help clear his name. Then it turns out she's next on the murder's list...

This veers from mildly romantic comedy, to Hot Vampire Sex (although it fortunately never reaches the depths of the later Anita Blakes), to detective investigation. It's not that sharp a detective novel (Sookie doesn't actually do that much investigation, and her "disability" is less help than you might think), but the characters are interesting, the contrast between the humans and vampires nicely drawn, and I found the storytelling strangely compelling. Fun mind candy. (And given how many people know about her mind-reading by the ending, it will be interesting to see how she copes subsequently.)

Sookie is having a bad day: first she finds the dead body of a friend in a cop's car, and is then attacked by a supernatural beast that nearly kills her with poison. She is saved only by the local vampires, who suck out the poison, and then send her and her vampire boyfriend Bill off on a simple mind-reading job in Dallas. But it turns out not to be that simple, with some distinctly nasty bad guys involved. And there's still the question of who killed her friend back home.

A bit faster and more furious than the first book, with a slightly more complex plot, as there's less need for setting up the story. An interesting set-up, but I find the writing style just a little detached. Nevertheless, another bit of fun mind-candy.