Deadlocked

by Sarabeth Pollock:

Sookie Stackhouse is back in Charlaine Harris’s newest release in the Sookie Stackhouse Southern Vampire Series.  The King of Nevada, Felipe de Castro, has descended upon Shreveport in an attempt to discover how his agent and fellow vampire, Victor, died.  Sookie’s great-grandfather, faery prince Niall, unexpectedly shows up and takes Claude back to Faery with him, and Mustapha, Eric’s daytime man, gives Sookie two warnings.  His first warning comes from Pam, who says, “Tell Sookie that this is the hard time that will show what she is made of.”  The second warning comes from Mustapha himself. Mustapha, who is a werewolf without a pack, wants Sookie to know that he is wary of Alcide’s enforcer, Janalynn (who happens to be Sam Merlotte’s girlfriend).

I know, it’s a lot.  Problems with the vampires, problems with the Fae, problems with the local Were pack, Tara’s babies are due any moment….  And, when Sookie goes to Eric’s house to greet Felipe, which is part of her duty as Eric’s “wife”, Sookie finds Eric feeding on another woman in their bedroom.  Shortly after this devastating discovery, the woman ends up dead on Eric’s front lawn, leading to a murder investigation with Sookie’s vampire beau at the dead center of it.

Pam was right.  These are the times that will show what Sookie Stackhouse is made of.

This is the twelfth book in the Sookie Stackhouse Southern Vampire Series, and author Charlaine Harris has already announced that there is only one more book in the series (to be released in May 2013).  Deadlocked serves as the threshold to the final chapter in Sookie’s story.  There are a lot of loose ends to tie up, and the task begins in this new book.

Fans of Eric and Sookie’s relationship will be disappointed that there are few interactions between the two.  Their relationship was already on tenuous ground after the last book, and things cool way down after Sookie discovers Eric feeding on the mysterious woman.  There is a great scene when Eric, Sookie, Pam and Bill are together on Sookie’s birthday that really captures the spirit of the relationship between them all.  It’s the kind of banter we saw more of in the earlier books that has been absent from the more recent novels.  Things do heat up between them, though, when Freyda, the vampire Queen of Oklahoma, starts to insert herself into Eric’s life, much to Sookie’s (and Eric’s) dismay.

While Claude is away in Faery with Niall, Dermot tries to reign in the fae who work at Hooligan’s, Claude’s strip club.  The fae and the elves trapped on Earth are becoming bolder, and Sookie worries that they will do something to give themselves away or spark more trouble.  She’s particularly concerned when she learns that the woman who dies in Eric’s front yard was part werewolf and her blood was laced with fairy blood, making her all the more irresistible to Eric.  Mustapha disappears after the incident at Eric’s house, and everything taken together seems to point to some kind of supernatural conspiracy.  It’s exactly the kind of mystery that Sookie Stackhouse needs to take her mind off of her troubles.  One of the stronger aspects of the book, however, is the tension that has been building around the cluviel dor, the mysterious gift from Fintan to Sookie’s Gran.  It would seem that she’s no longer the only person who knows about its existence, and now that people know that she has it, Sookie has found herself in an enviable position of power.

I have to admit that knowing there is only one more book after Deadlocked may have impacted how I felt about the story.  There were times while reading that I started to think that there needed to be more to the story, seeing that it is the penultimate book in the series.  There was a definite sense that a lot of stories were trying to be crammed into 327 pages.  The whole book felt rushed and almost incomplete as a result of the fast pacing and multitude of storylines, and when I finished it I was struck with disappointment because it seemed to be over before the story really got going.  I felt as though I’d been tempted, and once I drank I was still not sated.

To be fair, we now have Sookie’s story coming to us through the HBO series True Blood, which uses the novels for inspiration, as well as the True Blood graphic novels, which are based directly on the show.  Given all of that, it’s possible that the novels can no longer compare to the storytelling going on with True Blood; it could be a case of the student surpassing the teacher.  Fans of the Sookie Stackhouse Southern Vampire Series have whispered for years that the storytelling seems to have suffered with each new book as Sookie’s story has been drawn out in every conceivable way, leading the series toward a conclusion, while True Blood will almost assuredly be renewed for a sixth season before the fifth season even airs because the stories are getting stronger and stronger.  It’s one of the most popular HBO shows after The Sopranos.

Deadlocked is a good read for fans of the series, but it left me wanting more.  However, after reading the conclusion I am all the more eager to see how the series ends.  The stage is set and anything can happen.  Will Sookie be able to rekindle her relationship with Eric?  What will happen to Bill and Pam?  Will Sookie end up with Bill instead?  Or will she end up with Alcide?  And what will happen to Sam?  Now that we can officially begin the countdown to the end of the series, it’s time for predictions.  If you’ve read the book, feel free to contact me on Twitter and let me know what you think is going to happen to our friends in Bon Temps.

Sarabeth Pollock is a contributor for DarkMedia.  Follow her on Twitter at @SarabethPollock and check out her blog at sarabethpollock.wordpress.com.

Be sure to read DarkMedia’s interview with Charlaine Harris, and join our True Blood discussion group.