Book Review: Dead Until Dark

I just finished reading Charlaine Harris's Dead UntilDark, the first in a series of novels that I discovered at the Love Is Murder convention last weekend here in the Chicago suburbs. It's set in rural Louisiana and is about a telepathic barmaid, Sookie Stackhouse, who starts dating a vampire around the same time that a serial killer begins murdering women like Sookie.

This book was a very fun, quick read, and I've already checked my library to see if they carry the rest of the series. (They do.) It's not the same kind of serious vampire novel that I've come to expect from other writers, Anne Rice in particular. This one is a comedic murder mystery. For example, Sookie's vampiric love interest is named Bill, and later in the story she's guarded by a vampire named Bubba. No vampires named Armand here.

While it's a comedy, the novel also delves quite deeply into how society handles people who are different. This small town has identified Sookie as "different" all her life, but when they perceive her as threatened by this new vampire, they still protect her as family. But well-meaning protectors sometimes have a funny way of carrying out their intentions. Having lived in and around large cities all my life, I feel that I got a good sense of what it's like living in a small town from reading this book.

I highly recommend this novel, and I'll certainly be reading others in this series. It's tightly written, and I only questioned one or two turns in the plot as MacGuffins. Be prepared to laugh out loud; I did quite frequently.