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Zusatztext Praise for #1 New York Times bestselling author Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse novels “It’s the kind of book you look forward to reading before you go to bed! thinking you’re only going to read one chapter! and then you end up reading seven.”—Alan Ball! executive producer of True Blood “Vivid! subtle! and funny in her portrayal of southern life.”— Entertainment Weekly “Charlaine Harris has vividly imagined telepathic barmaid Sookie Stackhouse and her small-town Louisiana milieu! where humans! vampires! shapeshifters! and other sentient critters live...Her mash-up of genres is delightful! taking elements from mysteries! horror stories! and romances.”— Milwaukee Journal Sentinel “The series continues to be inventive and funny with an engaging! smart! and sexy heroine.”— The Denver Post “Blending action! romance! and comedy! Harris has created a fully functioning world so very close to our own! except! of course! for the vamps and other supernatural creatures.”— The Toronto Star Informationen zum Autor Charlaine Harris Klappentext Small town cocktail waitress Sookie Stackhouse's supernatural existence puts her in the line of fire in the fifth novel in the #1 New York Times bestselling series-the inspiration for the HBO® original series True Blood. When Sookie Stackhouse sees her brother Jason's eyes start to change, she knows he's about to turn into a were-panther for the first time. But her concern becomes cold fear when a sniper sets his deadly sights on the local changeling population, and Jason's new panther brethren suspect he may be the shooter. Now, Sookie has until the next full moon to find out who's behind the attacks-unless the killer decides to find her first...I knew my brother would turn into a panther before he did. As I drove to the remote crossroads community of Hotshot, my brother watched the sunset in silence. Jason was dressed in old clothes, and he had a plastic Wal-Mart bag containing a few things he might need?toothbrush, clean underwear. He hunched inside his bulky camo jacket, looking straight ahead. His face was tense with the need to control his fear and his excitement. “You got your cell phone in your pocket?” I asked, knowing I’d already asked him as soon as the words left my mouth. But Jason just nodded instead of snapping at me. It was still afternoon, but at the end of January the dark comes early. Tonight would be the first full moon of the New Year. When I stopped the car, Jason turned to look at me, and even in the dim light I saw the change in his eyes. They weren’t blue like mine anymore. They were yellowish. The shape of them had changed. “My face feels funny,” he said. But he still hadn’t put two and two together.Tiny Hotshot was silent and still in the waning light. A cold wind was blowing across the bare fields, and the pines and oaks were shivering in the gusts of frigid air. Only one man was visible. He was standing outside one of the little houses, the one that was freshly painted. This man’s eyes were closed, and his bearded face was raised to the darkening sky. Calvin Norris waited until Jason was climbing out the passenger’s door of my old Nova before he walked over and bent to my window. I rolled it down. His golden-green eyes were as startling as I’d remembered, and the rest of him was just as unremarkable. Stocky, graying, sturdy, he looked like a hundred other men I’d seen in Merlotte’s Bar, except for those eyes. “I’ll take good care of him,” Calvin Norris said. Behind him, Jason stood with his back to me. The air around my brother had a peculiar quality; it seemed to be vibrating.None of this was Calvin Norris’s fault. He hadn’t been the one who’d bitten my brother and changed him forever. Calvin, a werepanther, had been born what he was; it was his nature. I made myself say, “Thank you.”
