The second of Charlaine Harris’s Dead series about Sookie Stackhouse, a waitress in small-town Louisiana. A telepathic waitress. With a vampire boyfriend.

Vampires were legalized two years ago and now live openly. Sookie is asked by the local vampire cabal to visit their coun­ter­parts in Dallas and use her talents to find a missing vampire. She finds that he is being held by the Fellowship of the Sun, a fun­da­men­tal­ist church that wants to take the un out of undead.

Harris portrays life in small Southern towns with a deft touch, and she breathes fresh life, er, undeath into vampire cliches.