Dead Reckoning recap

Someone throws a firebomb into Merlotte's, and Sookie's attempt to find out why runs into an old enemy's vendetta. At the same time Eric and Pam decide they can no longer live under Victor Madden, the regent Nevada placed over Louisiana, who has spent months strangling Eric's business and who refused Pam permission to turn her dying lover Miriam. Sookie is drawn into the conspiracy against him. Clearing out her attic with her fairy cousins Claude and Dermot, she finds a letter from her grandmother revealing that her real grandfather was the fairy Fintan, and with it a cluviel dor, a fairy token that grants one wish to whoever holds it. Dermot's curse is broken by a ritual the three of them perform. The plot against Victor comes to a head at Fangtasia, where he and his people are ambushed and destroyed. In the aftermath Sookie discovers papers showing that Eric's dead maker promised him in marriage to the vampire queen of Oklahoma.

Sookie Stackhouse is a telepathic waitress in Bon Temps, Louisiana, where vampires and shapeshifters are both public knowledge. Louisiana was conquered by Felipe de Castro of Nevada, whose regent Victor Madden now sits over Eric Northman, the vampire sheriff Sookie is married to by vampire custom and bound to by exchanged blood. Sookie is part fairy: her great-grandfather, Prince Niall Brigant, fought a war against a faction that wanted his human-blooded descendants dead, during which Sookie was abducted and tortured, her fairy godmother Claudine was killed, and Bill Compton was poisoned rescuing her. Niall then closed Faery for good, stranding part-fairies including Sookie's cousin Claude and her great-uncle Dermot, who now live in her house; Dermot's mind has been tampered with. Eric's maker recently arrived with a second, damaged child, and the visit ended with both of them destroyed. Sookie's brother Jason is a widower, and Sookie is quietly teaching her small telepathic cousin Hunter how to manage his gift.

Someone throws a firebomb through the window at Merlotte's during business hours. The damage is contained and nobody is killed, but Sam cannot absorb the loss and the attack looks deliberate rather than random. Sookie helps with the cleanup and starts listening to what the parish is thinking, on the assumption that an arsonist in a small town rarely keeps it to himself. Her home life is crowded: Claude has settled in permanently and Dermot is living in the attic, still not himself and still working through the accumulated contents of four generations of Stackhouses. Alcide Herveaux turns up uninvited and in no clothes, a clumsy attempt to tie Sookie to his pack that leaves her angrier with him than she has ever been.

The investigation into the fire makes slow progress, and Sookie begins to suspect the target was her rather than Sam. In Shreveport, Eric's position under Victor Madden has become intolerable: the regent has opened a competing club, blocked Eric's ventures and refused every request his people make, all with unbroken good humor. Pam is more openly furious than her maker, and Sookie learns why. Pam's lover Miriam Earnest is dying of leukemia, and only a regent may authorize a new vampire being made; Victor has refused, and goes on refusing. Sookie also starts to work through the attic in earnest with Dermot, sorting a century of family belongings she has never had the heart to touch.

Eric and Pam stop talking about tolerating Victor and start planning to kill him, which under vampire law is treason against Felipe de Castro unless it is never discovered. They assemble people with reasons of their own: Bill, Eric's day man Mustapha Khan, Immanuel Earnest, and Colton, a young man who blames Victor for a death in his family. Sookie is brought in because her telepathy can tell them what Victor's human staff know. Meanwhile the trail from the firebombing leads back to Sandra Pelt, the sister of Debbie Pelt, who has never stopped believing Sookie killed her and has been hiring people to make Sookie's life dangerous.

Sandra Pelt's campaign escalates from arson to direct attempts on Sookie, and dealing with her runs alongside everything else. Sookie, Claude and Dermot perform a fairy ritual intended to break whatever was done to Dermot's mind, and it works: he becomes coherent, purposeful and grateful, and remembers who cursed him and why. The plan against Victor takes shape around a pretext he cannot refuse, an occasion at Fangtasia after closing that will put him and his guards inside Eric's own building with limited numbers. Pam presses for it hardest, because Miriam's time is running out and Victor's permission is never going to come.

Sorting the attic, Sookie finds a letter her grandmother left her and learns the truth behind her own family: Adele Stackhouse's children were fathered not by her husband but by Fintan, a half-fairy and Niall's son, which is where Sookie's blood and her telepathy come from. With the letter is a hidden object, a cluviel dor, a fairy love token that will grant one wish to the person holding it. Sookie keeps it, tells almost nobody, and understands that if the vampires learn of it she will never be allowed to keep it. Miriam dies without ever being turned. The plan for Fangtasia is finalized, every participant briefed, and the trap set for a night when Victor will come with only as many guards as courtesy allows.

Victor Madden and his entourage walk into Fangtasia after hours and are attacked by everyone Eric has assembled. The fight is close, protracted and expensive, and Sookie is in it rather than watching; when it ends, Victor and all of his people are dead and the bodies are disposed of so that nothing can be proved. Eric holds Area Five outright for the first time since the conquest, with the knowledge that Felipe de Castro will eventually come asking what became of his regent. Pam has her revenge and nothing else, Miriam being already dead. Sandra Pelt's vendetta is broken and she is put out of the way. Dermot, restored to himself, stays on. And in the papers left behind by Eric's dead maker Sookie finds a contract: Appius pledged Eric in marriage to Freyda, the vampire queen of Oklahoma, an arrangement Eric knew about and never mentioned to her.

Eric and Pam's conspiracy succeeds: Victor Madden and his entourage are lured to Fangtasia after hours and killed there, with Sookie, Bill, Mustapha, Colton, Immanuel and the Shreveport vampires all taking part. The killing is concealed rather than confessed, so Eric holds Area Five with Felipe de Castro's regent gone and the certainty that the king will eventually ask questions. Pam has lost Miriam, who died before permission to turn her ever came, and her grief is what drove the whole plot. Sandra Pelt's campaign against Sookie is broken and she is taken out of circulation, though nobody expects her to stay quiet forever. In the attic, Sookie has found her grandmother's letter and learned that her real grandfather was the fairy Fintan, along with the gift he left: a cluviel dor, a fairy love token that will grant its holder one wish, which she tells almost no one about. Dermot's curse is broken and he is himself again. The book closes on a document Sookie was never meant to see: Eric's dead maker pledged him in marriage to Freyda, the vampire queen of Oklahoma, an obligation Eric has known about and not mentioned, and which neither of them can simply refuse.