Dead Reckoning by Charlaine Harris

Posted on: May 03, 2012

Dead Reckoning by Charlaine Harris

Previously published in Dawn Books & Authors

Let me make an admission right here. I have read every single one of the Sookie Stackhouse novels, or the Southern Vampire novels as they were known before Alan Ball swamped them up so well for HBOs True Blood series. If there’s a best-seller series I openly admit to reading its Charlaine Harris’. So what if they’re not very well written? So what if they’re cheesy? Its not that I don’t acknowledge this fact, it’s just that I also know that they are fun. Here is this intrepid young barmaid (barmaid! As if she lived inValhalla!) who can read minds and is somehow a magnet for trouble especially of the supernatural kind. She’s outspoken, she’s feisty and she’s not very complicated. Vampires are out of the coffin, other ‘supes’ now abound and there’s always some sex and violence around the corner. Best of all, Sookie lives in a tiny town inLouisianathat’s full of semi-literate, inbred swamp-trash whose shenanigans are always entertaining.  How much better can it get?

 

Not much it seems. Harris started off the series so well but sadly, it’s been a slow and steady decline for both Sookie and Harris’ narratives, especially with Harris’ latest installment, Dead Reckoning. She has been unable to keep the momentum in her last few books and it is now clear that she is not capable of writing a long-lasting bestseller series the way Janet Evanovich has done with her Stephanie Plum novels. Dead Reckoning sees Sookie trying to come to terms with her fairy relatives, her strained ‘marriage’ to Eric Northman the Area 5 vampire sheriff and various seemingly random bits of vampire politics. Of course, she’s also gotTara’s baby shower to plan and tables to wait at Merlotte’s. If this sounds incredibly lame, it’s because it is.

Even to someone who has actively enjoyed these books previously, Dead Reckoning feels stale. It’s repetitive with no zing, no gusto and without the usual sex, gore and violence that kept the action ticking along in the earlier novels. Reading Harris’ books previously felt kitchy and maybe even kind of cool, but this last book has changed all that. The books have always had a great many things stewing together, but this gumbo lost its kick. There is far too much attention paid to small, insignificant details such as what Sookie is wearing (no, it isn’t haute couture and yes, it’s boring), when she washes her hair, what time her shifts at the bar are. Instead of one steady narrative arc there are a whole mess of (bad) smaller sub-plots, most of which have no bearing on any long term story. These include, but are not restricted to: Sandra Pelt out of jail and wanting to ‘get’ Sookie (‘I’ve tried to kill you over and over, and you just wont die!’), Hunter the telepathic cousin starting school and needing Aunt Sookie’s help in controlling his mind reading powers, Eric being forced into a pact his maker chose for him years ago, Amelia and Bob showing up with what is meant to be vital information which they don’t share it until they leave , Tara’s baby shower coming up, Pam’s lover being unwell and dying and yes, entire scenes dedicated to Sookie’s haircut. What is the point of all these smaller plots? Do they add to the larger one? They can’t, because it really doesn’t look like there is a larger plot at play at all.

There should have been some resolution on a few of the series’ sub-plots in Dead Reckoning and while there is one that is finally laid to rest, there’s just too much going on - none of which is of any importance. Harris spends just too long trying to make Sookie into a more complex character than the one fans know. Sookie has now become prone to sudden internal monologues in which she waxes philosophical about things like sin. Is Harris attempting to create a more politically correct and sensitive protagonist? Or is she just writing to cash in on the HBO series? Is she attempting to write something closer to a screenplay? Either way, Dead Reckoning is inauthentic and forced.

Also, in the last few books Harris has thanked a person each time for helping check the continuity of the Sookie-verse. Victoria Koski is her name and she is terrible at her job. Entire conversations are repeated in this book – it’s unimaginable why this could be intentional. If the reader can remember conversations Sookie has had again and again, shouldn’t she be able to? She’s telepathic not amnesiac.

Dead Reckoning is a bad book. It has no redeeming features and it is certain to reduce Harris fan following drastically. For those who are new to the series and interested in the True Blood source material it is probably best if they stop reading the books written after the TV show began because it is now clear that this really is a case of a writer being run over by the vehicle she herself created.