UFBC Episode 3 Book Recap

*************SPOILER ALERT**************

The Urban Fantasy Book Club assumes that listeners have read the subject book before listening.  The following recap is here as reference and to refresh your memories about the events of the book before  or while listening to the podcast.  If you haven’t yet read this book, STOP, read the book, and come back and listen when you’re done.  Enjoy!

This recap is excerpted from the Wikipedia entry on Dead Until Dark

Sookie Stackhouse is a waitress at Merlotte’s, a bar in a small town in Lousiana. She has been waiting for any vampire to enter the bar, as they have come out to the public (called “mainstreaming”) since the Japanese released a synthetic blood that curbs their urges, although it has none of the flavor of real blood.

The waitress reveals herself as telepathic, able to “hear” thoughts of other people. A vampire enters the bar, and she listens in on some thoughts of a couple, the Ratrays, that joins him, discovering they plan to drain him, as vampire blood is considered the best drug on the market.

Sookie intervenes and the Rattrays escape, promising revenge. The vampire reveals he is Bill Compton. She realizes she can’t read his mind, a new thing for her. The next day, the Rattrays return, badly wound Sookie, and Bill kills them. He feeds Sookie some of his blood and finds out about her “affliction”. Meanwhile, the body of a local woman is found dead.

She resumes her life, living in her grandmother’s house, and occassionally spending time with her estranged brother, Jason. Jason stays in their family home. Both siblings were orphaned when a flash flood killed their parents. Sookie covers work for a co-worker who doesn’t come in, and the next day, her boss Sam asks her to go to the worker’s house.

There, she discovers the co-worker has been killed, and she asks her brother’s associate, Rene, who is also the boyfriend of another co-worker, Arlene. She returns to work, where she is intrigued by her inability to see into Sam’s head. Sookie’s grandmother asks Bill to speak at a meeting where descendants of the Civil War talk. After the meeting Sookie, on a date with Sam, returns home to find her grandmother slaughtered.

Sookie inherits her grandparent’s home, and a frustrated Jason hits her. He leaves enraged, but she realizes he’ll get over it. Sookie sleeps with Bill, her first, but she is creeped out by his vampire friends, who aren’t as happy with Bill’s decision to go mainstream. She asks Bill if he’ll take her to Fangtasia, a vampire bar run by the former viking Eric Northman, in the hopes of finding out about the murdered women. Bill takes her, but only after giving her some of his blood, so that she can better navigate the dangerous waters of a vampiric population in the bar. Her pet cat is murdered, in a message to her.

Eric realizes Sookie has special powers, and she is desirable to him, as she’s been fed vampire blood twice. She discovers the victims were known at the bar, and returns home. Sookie sends Bill away after being shaken by the events at the bar. He tells Sookie to go to Sam if she’s in trouble, because of her inability to read his mind clearly.

Eric later asks Bill to bring Sookie to investigate a large sum of money that is missing from his bar. She comes and uses her powers on humans, discovering the bartender Long Shadow is the culprit. The Native American bartender attacks her, but Eric stakes him and kills him. His blood flows into Sookie’s mouth, further altering her. She asks to go home. Bill decides to go away for awhile in order to secure their protection from Eric.

Sookie babysits for Arlene, when she returns to get her kids, Bill has brought dumb vampire Elvis Presley, now called Bubba and possessing none of his former knowledge, to guard her house. Rene and Bill talk for a little, and Arlene, Rene, and Sookie learn Bubba doesn’t like human blood, but animals’ (especially cats’).

Sookie tries to track down her brother to tell him she’s not learned much reading minds of the patrons after he becomes the number one suspect by way of bondage sex tapes with two of the victims. She finds out that he is at Merlotte’s, and goes to pick him up, but the bartender tells him nothing’s happened there. She takes a stray dog home because her cat had been killed a few days before.

At home, she finds out overnight that the stray dog is Sam, who is a shifter and able to change his form to other beings, preferring a collie, a friendly dog that most people will easily associate with. Mad that he came out with this now that she is involved with Bill, she takes him home when Andy Bellefleur, the local detective, comes by to ask some questions. She makes him sleep in her spare room overnight, then a final victim is killed and Jason is arrested.

With Bill gone, Sookie finds Bubba drugged, having ingested the blood of a drugged cat. She realizes the killer is nearby, and it’s Rene. She fights Rene off and knocks him out. In the hospital, Bill returns and says he’s now an Area Investigator, meaning Eric can’t come between the couple. She tells him not to kill Rene, who also murdered his own sister and then had sex with the body, and Bill lets him live.