Deadlocked

I have made the realisation with this book that this series is not speculative fiction, it’s not paranormal or urban fantasy, it’s domestic drama with a flavouring of the paranormal. 

In this iteration the main plot driver is that Eric, still Sookie’s husband, is framed for murder and it’s up to Sookie to get herself in the thick of things to get him off the hook.

 

Judging a book by its genre

So coming from the angle that the book isn’t really located in a genre I am familiar with does it hold up?

I have to say no.  I didn’t dislike the book (though there are some very articulate, hard hitting critiques of the whole series and its misogyny and racism). Taken at face value it was a flat read.  I have to ask, if the core of domestic drama is the drama.  Where is it to be found in Deadlocked?

There seemed to be no difference in pacing or tension between Sookie checking her emails or sitting at her kitchen table having a chat while an intruder lies dead at her feet.

Indeed that which has the greatest affect on Sookie is the perceived cheating on her by her vampire husband and the possibility of her loosing him. Even that’s fixed by sitting on the edge of the bathtub for a few seconds of shallow soul searching. 

I find that I can only believe Sookie as a character if I consider her to have some sort of borderline personality disorder.

Irksome Writing

Some of the writing irked me as well.  Stuck inside Sookie’s head the reader is in “conversation” with Sookie the entire book.  Which is why I was tempted to throw the book when Sookie began relaying the contents of her inbox, including how much spam she had and the fact that she deleted it. 

When conveying one’s day surely even Sookie knows to cull out the uninteresting bits.

Another doozy was the confession of the baddie to the hardnosed, and nosey Police Detective over the phone.  The dialogue so stilted that it screamed “forced confession” to anyone bar an inebriated monkey (which the writer had established was not the case).  How Sookie could think that the detective would buy it for a second I can not say?

Only for the diehard fans.

In summary, this book hits forty kilometres an hour and stays there the entire time.  If you want to know what happens to Sookie, you’ll no doubt want to get it, but for someone looking for a cheap thrill or an escape I'd look elsewhere - there’s nothing to get your blood rushing or heart thumping.

This book was provided by the publisher.

So, a bit of context (pun not intended) for the people who are not familiar with the series (if you've heard of True Blood, it's a loose adaptation of the books): the basic premise is that, since synthetic blood has been invented, vampires are able to get out of the closet (and they did); we follow the story of Sookie Stackhouse, who's a waitress in a small town in Louisiana, and has a tendency to have a fair amount of drama, murders and power struggles around her. The whole series is easy-read, obviously you'll want to avoid it if you're allergic to vampire stories, but apart from that it's entertaining and funny.

It's the 12th book in the series, but all books are of reasonable size (contrary to some other fantasy series I won't name here :P), so by now the setup is pretty well-defined, we know all the characters, and it's essentially comfy.
In the whole series, I felt this one was kind of not as good as the others - still enjoyable, but missing a certain je ne sais quoi - maybe some funny one-liners (although I did laugh quite loudly at the sentence "Claude was standing absolutely still, doing a great imitation of Switzerland", but then I was in a tram in Zürich, so...), maybe a bit of action - the mood was kind of bittersweet all along, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but I hope the next one will be a bit more upbeat :)

This is the 12th, and penultimate, book in the Sookie Stackhouse series so this review may contain spoilers for previous books.

“And I suppose, as usual, Bill will want to express his undying love that surpasses my love, as he'll tell you – and Pam will want to say something sarcastic and nearly painful, while reminding you that she loves you, too.”

For those of you worried that the Sookie series had fizzled out before its finale, fear not, it has got back on track with Deadlocked. They started out as mysteries with a supernatural element and poor Sookie would always end up at the centre of a very big mess. So it's good to see it returning to that formula. This time, a woman is murdered on Eric's lawn during an unwanted house party. Her blood had traces of fairy in it and it would seem someone was trying to frame Eric or at least make Sookie mad.

For me, reading the Sookie books is like revisiting old friends. The series is coming to a close and it's nice to see the minor characters getting their lives sorted, even if Sookie is still as confused as ever. There are lots of lovely little every day things going on on Bon Temps amongst the supernatural chaos.

The cluviel dor gets mentioned a bit too much, whether or not she could keep it with her, whether she should use it and what for. In Dead Reckoning, it was revealed that it will grant one wish in the name of love and that point is hammered home repeatedly. Yes, it's first person narrative, and it was playing on Sookie's mind but her thoughts were a little repetitive and made it a little bit obvious that something was going to happen with it.

Eric's gone back to being his uncommunicative self and Sookie is frustrated. Knowing why the victim was at the party might help her understand what's going on in her boyfriend's head. We don't get to see a whole lot of Eric in this story, which may disappoint some fans, but it sets the scene for the final instalment which will be much anticipated.