Dead to the World

Dead to the World is a novel by the American writer Charlaine Harris, published in 2004 by Ace Books. It is the fourth book in The Southern Vampire Mysteries, the series narrated by Sookie Stackhouse.

Sookie is a cocktail waitress in a small Louisiana town, and her ability to read minds makes ordinary company difficult and vampire company easier. The book begins at the turn of the year, three weeks after the events of the previous novel, when she finds Eric running down the road near her home. The vampire has lost his memory, which leaves him dependent on her and no longer in control of the local power he had built up, and his second in command, Pam, explains why: a coven of witches, some of them also werewolves, has come to Shreveport intending to extort money from the vampires and take over the area. Sookie takes Eric in, and the arrangement draws her into a fight that is not hers, with her brother Jason negotiating what the family will be paid for the risk.

The series mixes small-town life with the politics of a supernatural population that has recently made itself public, and this instalment was the basis for the fourth season of the television adaptation True Blood.