Harris goes dark in ‘Dead and Gone’

  The vampires are out.
  The shapeshifters are coming out.
  The fairies are going to war.
  There's no shortage of chaos in the life of psychic barmaid Sookie Stackhouse in "Dead and Gone," the ninth installment of Charlaine Harris' popular Southern Vampire Mysteries. It gets worse when the faction challenging Sookie's fairy grandfather Niall decides to put a hit out on her and escalates even more when Crystal, her former werepanther sister-in-law, is found crucified and partially shifted.
  It appears not all the people in the small Louisiana town of Bon Temps are taking revelations about the supernatural well, and the resulting upsurges in prejudice and hate groups splinter both families and longtime friends. Sookie has few of the former and a shrinking group of the latter. It crushes her when she finds that she's about to be betrayed by someone close who's become overtly "humans only."
  "They were thinking about doing awful things to me," Sookie realizes at one point. "I crouched under a bare mimosa, feeling as bleak and miserable as I've ever felt."
  There's a bit of predictability in "Dead and Gone," and regular readers of the series are likely to be a bit bored by Sookie's brother Jason again being pitched as the prime suspect. But overall, the book is a lovely diversion from the daily grind and seems to be setting the scene for a major shift in Sookie's increasingly complicated love life. Current vampire steady and vampire sheriff Eric Northman and former vampire neighbor and boyfriend Bill Compton play key roles in "Dead and Gone," and Harris leaves readers with the distinct impression that something is about to change.
  Harris' latest effort is also one her most violent, and she plunges Sookie into scenarios that leave her physically and mentally battered. I can't help wondering if that's the influence of the intensely graphic HBO series "True Blood," which is based on the books, or just the natural progression you'd expect when a human is so closely bound to beings that can squash her like a bug. There's power in darkness though and readers may find themselves perusing the final chapters more than once. I know I did.