Sookie Stackhouse enjoys her job as a cocktail waitress in Bon Temps, Louisiana, even though she sometimes gets tired of the constant chatter - an not just the gossip; Sookie can read minds. It's taken time, but she's finally found cute, dateable guys whose minds she can't read. And okay, so most of them happen to be vampires, but no man is perfect, right?

All of the humans in Bon Temps have had dealings with the vamps - mysterious, seductive creatures who 'came out' a few years back. Now the weres and shifters have decided to follow the lead of the undead and reveal their existence to the ordinary world.

Sookie already knows about them, of course - her brother turns into a panther at the full moon, she's friend to find the local Were pack, and Sam, her boss at Merlotte's bar, is a shifter.

The great Were revelation goes pretty well at first - then the horribly mutilated body of a were-panther is found in the parking lot of Merlotte's. Though Sookie never cared that much for the victim, no one deserves such a horrible death, and she agrees to use her telepathic talent to track down the murderer.

What Sookie doesn't realise is that there is a far greater danger than this killer threatening Bon Temps: a race of unhuman beings, older, more powerful and far more secretive than the vampires or the werewolves is preparing for war. And Sookie is an all-too human pawn in their ages-old battle.