Dead as a Doornail is the fifth book in the series centring around Sookie Stackhouse, cocktail waitress and telepath.
A serial killer is out stalking the two natured and the werepanther community has Sookie’s brother pegged as the prime suspect. At the next full moon they’ll tear him apart unless she can prove his innocence before then.
A task that would be easier if she wasn’t also on the killer’s hit list, trying to extricate her best friend from an abusive relationship and being dragged into the local werewolf pack’s leadership challenge.
There’s a lot to work with here but sadly I don’t think Dead as a Doornail lives up to its promise. To me the plot seemed to be secondary, with most of the book being taken up by Sookie trying to sort out her romantic priorities.
And what a tangle her love life is. It would seem that every supernatural being within a hundred-mile radius is madly in love with her including two vampires, a werewolf, a werepanther and two shape shifters. It’s even hinted that her fairy godmother might be interested. This would be all well and good if we were given some reason to believe that there was something about her that the supernatural find irresistible but as it is, we are not. By the time the shape shifting tiger started making a play for her I was having trouble suspending my disbelief and found the whole situation tiresome. What’s more we listen to all this angst and don’t even get the payoff of a single sex scene. Maybe the point of this story was to develop character rather than focus on action, if so I think it’s failed and it’s a shame to see a plot with such great potential take a back seat.
I’ve enjoyed the earlier instalments in this series and I hope it’s not losing its way. I’d probably take a look at the next book before I crossed the series off my reading list but Dead as a Doornail is one for the die-hard series fans. - Lynn
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