Dead as a Doornail

Sookie Stackhouse Southern Vampire Mystery # 5

By: Charlaine Harris

Narrated by: Johanna Parker

Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins

Publisher's summary

New York Times and USA Today best-selling author Charlaine Harris has won an Anthony Award for her one-of-a-kind Sookie Stackhouse mystery series. Sookie, a Louisiana cocktail waitress, skilled telepath, and friend to vampires, has a dedicated fan base that grows larger every day.

Because her mind-reading ability tends to spook people, most of Sookie's friends are of the not-exactly-human variety. And now that her brother is about to transform into a were-panther for the first time, the supernatural world is suddenly a family affair. When Sookie realizes a deadly sniper is gunning down the local changelings, her feelings turn to full-blown terror. She needs to stop the assassain before the next full moon...if he doesn't get to her first.

With its delightfully quirky characters and delicious suspense, Dead as a Doornail is a vampire mystery readers will love sinking their fangs into.

Listen to more titles in the Sookie Stackhouse series.

©2005 Charlaine Harris Schulz (P)2005 Recorded Books, LLC

Critic reviews

"Harris does an admirable job of creating a heroine who's not only interesting but completely believable in a world of the strange and the different. Natural and humorous dialogue and a nicely paced plot...make this entry the best yet in the series." (Publishers Weekly)

dead as a doornail

I love the storyline it is full of action and intrigue it holds your attention and you keep wanting to read it or listen to it until it is finished she is such a good writer

Enjoyable

If you are looking for deep reading you will need to go elsewhere. There's drama, intrigue, romance, and of course all the supernatural creatures you can imagine.
I wanted to listen to the next book as soon as I finished one. I like Charlaine Harris, and I like all the characters. It's interesting reading these after watching the True Blood shows. There have definitely been some changes in the show, the books are only from Sookie's viewpoint, so the show would have to be different to show the other people's view points. Well done.

Although good, it seemed a little flat.

I loved all Johanna Parker's narration of the Sookie Stackhouse books. But, although good, this one Seemed a little flat. That's why I gave 4 stars.

Great Story - Audio needs work

Any additional comments?

I love the Sookie Stackhouse novels!! They are very different from the True Blood series. Great stories. I really have enjoyed Ms. Parker's reading of the first few books. This book you hear a lot of swallowing, lip smacking, etc. Its really distracting from the book. I'm not sure what the difference in audio is. I hope the rest of the series is not like this. I'd still recommend it, but it was not as enjoyable as the first 4 books.

better mystery, fun

this one's mystery was much more engrossing than precious ones and I really enjoyed the storyline. i didn't know who the bad guy was until just before it was too late.

MUST READ!

Love these books! I can't wait to read the other books and will be sad when I finish

Very good Sookie Book

Here are the 15 words required to submit a review. Why do we have to do this?

Someone is shooting Wares

In the first book where Sookie's brother is now a bitten ware, someone has begun taking pot shots at wares ... and when her brother is once again being blamed for something he didn't do Sookie has to solve the mystery. When Sam ends up among the folks who get shot (not killed) Sookie has to go to Eric to find a substitute bartender till Sam can work again.

Once again Bubba is in the book (he pretty much shows up at least once in every book going forward)

There's also a subplot where sookie has to save one of her childhood buddies who gets in too deep in the vampire world

also Sookie gets sweeped up into the competition to pick a new ware leader, where she meets a new love interest

Still Entertaining

I read a lot of the reviews and have to say that I didn't notice the lip smacking and pauses of the narrator that much. I had to turn it up really loud to notice anything. Normally I listen in my car and background noise is loud. She did call the character Claudine, Claudia, by accident. Sookie's southern accent wasn't as developed and the other character's voices weren't as defined, but overall I wasn't too distracted by this. I got used to it quickly and became absorbed by the story. I enjoyed the book just as much as the others!

Really good with some audible flaws

I am a huge fan of this whole series and am doing a re-listen of them Overall, this is a good book just a little bit slower compared to the first four books. Still funny with mystery and action, but not a lot of interaction with some of the main characters that were featured in the previous books of the series. A lot of new ones introduced or expanded upon.

Johanna Parker did such a wonderful job with Books 1-4 that it was a little jarring when the established characters lost their accents in this one. I had no idea that this was the first of the series to be recorded until I was done with it and read the other reviews. It makes sense now because she didn’t have their voices down yet.

A lot of reviewers mentions “mouth sounds” and they were there but it was minimal and not the fault of the narrator. That’s the job of the audio engineer to clean up before the release.

Lastly, there were a few flubs of character names that had to have been wrong in the script the narrator was given. At one point, the character Claudine is referred to as “Claudia” (confusing due to future books) and Jason’s boss is continually called “Catfish Hunter” in this book, however, that character’s name is Cstfish *Hennessy* whereas Catfish HUNTER is a famous baseball player. Again, the flaw is in the script, not with the narrator.