Dead as a Doornail recap

Sookie sees her brother Jason through his first full moon as a bitten werepanther, then finds that someone is shooting shapeshifters across the parish: Sam Merlotte is hit in the leg, Calvin Norris is wounded, and a young woman is killed. Running the bar in Sam's place, Sookie takes on a vampire bartender lent by Eric, an Englishman named Charles Twining. Her house is set on fire in the night and she barely escapes. Meanwhile the Shreveport werewolf pack loses its leader and holds a contest to replace him; Sookie is asked to witness, sees Patrick Furnan cheat, and cannot stop the contest that kills Alcide's father. Private investigators hired by Debbie Pelt's family press her about the disappearance she is responsible for, and she has to get Eric's help to free her friend Tara from a brutal vampire. Sookie works out that the sniper is Sweetie Des Arts, the bar's own cook, a woman bitten years ago who hates what she became; Sweetie is killed. Charles then attacks Sookie, revealed as an assassin avenging a vampire Eric destroyed, and is destroyed himself. Eric ends the book by telling Sookie that he remembers everything.

Sookie Stackhouse is a telepathic waitress at Merlotte's bar in Bon Temps, Louisiana, in a world where vampires live openly. Her grandmother was murdered by a man hunting Sookie; her boss Sam Merlotte is a shapeshifter; and she has survived a maenad, the anti-vampire Fellowship of the Sun, and a vampire kingdom's politics. Her relationship with the vampire Bill Compton ended after he planned to leave her for his maker and then, starving and out of his mind, nearly killed her during his own rescue in Mississippi; she killed his maker herself. She is watched, wanted and repeatedly used by Eric Northman, the thousand-year-old sheriff of the area. Last winter a coven cursed Eric with amnesia, Sookie hid him in her house for pay, and they became lovers; when the curse broke he remembered none of it. On the same night, Debbie Pelt broke in to kill Sookie and Sookie shot her dead, a killing Eric helped conceal and then forgot, leaving Sookie the only person who knows. Her brother Jason was kidnapped and bitten by a werepanther from the isolated community of Hotshot and will now change with the full moon. Sookie is also guarded, on and off, by a beautiful woman named Claudine who will not explain what she is.

Sookie spends the first full moon of Jason's new life with him, out at his house by the pond, because there is no one else to do it. Because he was bitten rather than born to it, his change is partial and agonizing and leaves him a hybrid of man and cat, an object of contempt to the born werepanthers of Hotshot. He is furious about it and looking for someone to punish. Back in town, Sam Merlotte is shot in the leg by a rifle as he steps out of Merlotte's, and the bar is left without an owner on his feet. Sookie takes on the running of it, hires help, and starts hearing about other shootings in the area. The victims have nothing obvious in common until Sookie sees what the police cannot: every one of them is two-natured.

The shootings continue. Calvin Norris, the head of Hotshot, is badly wounded, and a young woman is killed outright, and the shapeshifter community of the parish realizes it is being hunted by someone who knows what they are. Sookie, who now has to keep Merlotte's staffed at night, accepts Eric Northman's offer of a bartender: Charles Twining, a small, courteous English vampire with an eyepatch and a stock of stories about a life at sea, who proves to be very good with customers. Bill Compton comes home from South America and starts finding reasons to be near Sookie, who does not want him back. The Shreveport werewolf pack loses Colonel Flood, its longtime leader, and the pack's succession is suddenly an open question.

Alcide Herveaux asks Sookie to serve as an impartial witness at the contest that will decide the next packmaster, between his father Jackson Herveaux and Patrick Furnan, a motorcycle dealer with the rank and file behind him. Sookie also has her friend Tara Thornton to worry about: Tara's arrangement with a wealthy vampire has been handed on to Mickey, a vicious vampire who is hurting her and whom Tara is too frightened to leave. Sookie asks Eric for help, which costs her. On top of that, private investigators hired by Debbie Pelt's family arrive from Jackson, asking careful questions about the night Debbie disappeared, and Sookie, who shot her, has to lie to their faces without any assurance that they believe her.

Sookie's house is set on fire in the night. She gets out alive, but part of the house is gutted, most of what her grandmother left her is ruined, and a man's body is found in the burned area. She is left camping in what remains and depending on the goodwill of people she does not entirely trust, with money from the pack and the vampires paying for the repairs. Eric handles Mickey, and Tara is freed from him at a price that will be Sookie's to pay eventually. Between the sniper, the arson, the pack's succession fight and the Pelts' investigators, Sookie cannot tell which of the several people circling her is the one actually trying to kill her.

The packmaster contest is held, and Sookie, witnessing, sees Patrick Furnan cheat in one of the trials. She cannot stop what follows: the contest ends in a fight to the death, and Jackson Herveaux is killed. Furnan becomes packmaster of Shreveport. Alcide, grieving and looking for a reason, blames Sookie for not preventing it, and the friendship between them goes cold. Sookie, meanwhile, works out the pattern behind the shootings by thinking about who has been present in every town where a shapeshifter was shot, rather than about who hates them.

The sniper is Sweetie Des Arts, the short-order cook at Merlotte's, who was bitten by a shapeshifter years ago, became a thing she cannot stand being, and has since moved from town to town killing two-natured people. She corners Sookie with the rifle and is killed before she can use it, and the shootings end. That same night Charles Twining attacks Sookie in the open. The polite English bartender was sent to Louisiana to avenge Long Shadow, the vampire Eric destroyed at Fangtasia years ago; he set the fire at Sookie's house, and killing Eric's favorite human was the nearest thing to revenge available to him. He is destroyed. Sam recovers, Tara is free of Mickey, and Sookie is left with a half-burned house and a ruined friendship with Alcide. Then Eric comes to tell her that his memory has returned: he remembers the weeks in her house, what they were to each other, and Debbie Pelt dying on her kitchen floor.

Both threats turn out to have been sitting inside Merlotte's all along. The sniper is Sweetie Des Arts, the short-order cook, who was bitten by a shapeshifter years ago, became something she despises, and has been moving from town to town killing two-natured people ever since. She corners Sookie with a rifle and is killed before she can fire, and the shootings stop. Sam, Calvin Norris and the others she wounded recover. The second threat is Charles Twining, the courteous English vampire Eric lent to the bar. He set the fire at Sookie's house and he attacks her openly at the end: he was sent to Louisiana to avenge Long Shadow, the vampire Eric destroyed at Fangtasia years earlier, and killing Eric's favorite human was the closest he could get. He is destroyed. The werewolf pack ends the book under Patrick Furnan, who cheated his way through the contest; Jackson Herveaux is dead, and Alcide, who blames Sookie for not preventing it, is no longer easy company. Tara Thornton is free of Mickey, bought out of the arrangement by Eric at a price Sookie will owe. Bill is back in Bon Temps and unwelcome. The last word belongs to Eric, who tells Sookie that his memory has come back: he remembers the weeks in her house, their nights together, and Debbie Pelt dying on her kitchen floor, which means Sookie's one real secret is now shared with the most dangerous person she knows.