I dare you to read the prologue of this book without getting totally pulled in to the story. My heart was pounding by page 2, and I think my boss might want to have a talk with Mr. Hart because I went in to work a couple of mornings on very little sleep because I couldn’t put this book down until I got to the last word.

Johnny Merrimon was once a happy child. He and his twin sister, Alyssa, lived with their beautiful, vibrant mother and strong, caring father. Then Alyssa goes missing. She’s seen being pulled into a mysterious van, and a year later, Johnny’s life is completely different. His mother is bullied into passivity by a rich, abusive man who keeps her strung out on drugs and treats her like a possession. Johnny knows in his heart that he can find his sister, bring his father home, and save his mother, and for months he plays a dangerous game of spying on local child predators, convinced that at least one of them knows what happened to his sister. Detective Hunt is the haunted cop who cannot break out of his obsession with Alyssa’s case – and the beautiful mother – to save his own family from falling apart. Jack is the wounded best friend who idolizes Johnny and tries to mask his own pain with the alcohol he steals from his cop father.

Hart could have taken the easy way out and turned this into a suspenseful but heartwarming story of mystery

and redemption. Instead, he creates complex, rich characters and places them in terrifying, soul searching situations. Johnny is a child living with nightmares, and he reaches into ancient mysticism, searching

for strength and clues to help him heal his family. He’s seen too much of the harsh reality of life for someone his age, and this dark desperation colors all the events in this book.

I was, simply put, blown away by this book. It is well written, intelligent, and impossible to forget. A week after finishing it, I’m still thinking about it. Hart is now on my must-read list, and I look forward to reading his next novel.

“Dead in the Family” has a very appropriate title — all sorts of family members pop up, and not just for Sookie. Charlaine Harris still can whips up a pleasant warm Southern vibe for her not-so-urban fantasies, but unfortunately this latest novel isn’t quite up to her usual standards: it’s basically a mass of fluffy in-between storylines that rarely go anywhere.

Just after Amelia leaves for New Orleans, Sookie’s cousin Claude appears at her home and asks to move in with her, since he’s a lone fairy who needs the presence of another. Bill is suffering from silver poisoning AND depression, and Sookie has to find a “relative” who can help him.

And Eric has some family issues as well — his maker Appius Livius Ocella shows up on Sookie’s doorstep, along with his “son”/lover Alexei.

To make matters worse, unidentified fairies and were have been crossing Sookie’s land,, and it also turns out that there’s a dead body buried back there. And it’s not Debbie Pelt’s. Now Sookie must unravel the secrets plaguing the supernaturals around her, or there might be even more deaths.

“Dead in the Family” feels like Charlaine Harris wrote half-a-dozen short stories, ripped them apart at the seams, and then sewed them back together. There’s no central plot to this book, just a mass of fluffy subplots woven loosely around each other. And some of the stories don’t really have much point to them, so the book feels cluttered and fragmented.

The saving grace is that some of those subplots ARE interesting, mainly the ones that develop the characters — the whole subplot involving Bill and the elderly Caroline Bellefleur is quite sweet and touching, and it should be interesting to see where Harris takes the religious/political pressure on the weres. And the typically bloody climax is a pretty shocking, gruesome one, if a bit slapdash.

But Sookie’s characterization is very shaky in this book — Harris zooms through her

entire recovery from being TORTURED in ONE CHAPTER (ARG! Cop-out!), and initially she seems so aggressive that it feels like she’s channeling Anita Blake. Fortunately she gets steadier and sunnier after

the first few

chapters, and it’s intriguing to see her various family members interacting with her — fae, were and telepathic human.

And there’s some much-needed development given to the sexy, devil-may-care Claude (it’s very cute when he’s goofing around on the playground with Hunter), as well as new insights into Bill and Eric’s lives and families (both living and undead).

“Dead in the Family” is all about the family ties, but it feels like Charlaine Harris just whipped together a bunch of short story ideas rather than writing a cohesive plot. Better luck next time.