Dead Until Dark * Charlaine Harris * Sookie Stackhouse #1

A telepathic Louisiana cocktail waitress falls for the first vampire to walk into her small-town bar, only to find herself launching a dangerous investigation when a string of gruesome local murders points directly to her new supernatural boyfriend.

The Story: Written by prominent New York Times bestselling mystery icon Charlaine Harris, this high-stakes premier installment in the celebrated Sookie Stackhouse chronicle serves as the original literary blueprint behind season one of HBO’s global smash-hit True Blood. The narrative transforms the backwoods landscape of northern Louisiana into an exceptionally sharp, strategy-first investigative workspace. The plot centers on Sookie Stackhouse, a mind-reading waitress from Bon Temps, who views her telepathic ability as a disability that ruins her dating life. Her predictable monitoring routines permanently fracture when Bill Compton, a handsome Civil War veteran turned vampire, enters the coordinate grid of her bar.Because vampires have recently come "out of the coffin" due to the invention of synthetic blood, society is struggling to adapt to the new legal parameters. Sookie quickly discovers that Bill's mind is a beautiful personal sanctuary of absolute silence, sparking a fierce, real-world romance. However, the timeline hits a highly volatile boundary when a suspect pool of local women, including Sookie's coworker, is systematically murdered by a serial killer. Because each victim shares a history of hooking up with vampires, the local police department places Bill at the top of their target list, forcing Sookie to coordinate a frantic counter-campaign to clear his name.A fast-paced, multi-layered puzzle packed with witty banter, small-town prejudices, and southern politics. Sookie utilizes her sharp intuitive diagnostic toolkit to sift through a suspicious ledger of local barflies, jealous exes, and ancient fanged enforcers. As the killer closes in on a final deadline and targets her own family circle, Sookie must drop her standard cocktail-serving habits and rely entirely on her telepathic senses to act as an active protective shield.

Perfect For: Devotees of traditional, fast-reading urban fantasy, vampire noir, and Southern Gothic mysteries; viewers of HBO's True Blood looking to experience the original source text; and dedicated book collectors maintaining a complete shelf of the globally bestselling Southern Vampire Mysteries library.

First Published 2001. This Edition Sept 2008 Ace mass-market TV tie-in edition.