Dead as a Doornail by Charlaine Harris

PLOT After reading two books set in possessed places and experiencing both the gravity of Ghostwalk (a bit of a pun here) and the suffocating terror of Lost Boy Lost Girl, I was ready for some humor with my horror. Hooray for Charlaine Harris who makes scary delightfully fun! Dead as a Doornail is the fifth book in Harris' Sookie Stackhouse series. Sookie, a waitress in Bon Temps, Louisiana, is pretty, self-reliant, telepathic, and lusted after by a pack, ummmmm, pride, or is is colony, of supernatural, handsome male beings. There's Bill, her vampire ex-boyfriend; Eric, the blond Viking vampire; Alcide Herveaux, the sleek werewolf; Sam, who can shift from friendly dog to stalking panther, and a zoo of other suitors. Danger and mystery enter the scene when a sniper begins shooting shapeshifters, seriously wounding Sookie's boss Sam. When her own brother, Jason, a newly made shapeshifter, falls under suspicion, Sookie knows she must find the real culprit. Enter Charles, the new vampire bartender with a murky past, and abusive, violent Mickey, vampire boyfriend of Sookie's childhood friend, Tara. Now, throw in a real fairy godmother and a struggle for werewolf leadership, and you have fun and chills right until the last page.
COMMENT I had read Grave Surprise from Harris' Harper Connelly series and thoroughly enjoyed it. Harper can find where people are buried; she can tell who is interred and how they died, leading her into the age-old mystery of "who done it." Harris is a master of snappy dialogue and her plots never bog down. With Sookie and Harper both, each book is a great ride until the end. Recommended for those of us who like a little levity peppered with jolts of supernatural (and human) danger.