The final dribblings from the much-mentioned udders of the Sookie Stackhouse cash-cow leak into print. Hopefully this execrable dross has reached an end with this cynical grab for her fans’ last remaining dollars.

This isn’t actually a novel, rather a pathetically short (just over 7000 words) A-Z explaining the fate of every single character from the Southern Vampire Mysteries series. Most of the characters I either don’t remember or barely recall, such was their impact on the story. Some get a single line, some a page. The tone varies widely, from the single line fate of unmemorable extra Hank Clearwater: “HANK CLEARWATER contracted gonorrhea.”, to the details of Terry and Jimmie Bellefleur’s untimely deaths in a road accident or of Andy Bellefleur’s teenage daughter due a heart defect. Not sure what the Bellefleurs have done to upset Harris so much. Then there’s the demise of town drunk Jane Bodehouse: After 13 books of her being an befuddled figure of mockery whom nobody cares less about she eventually dies in a drunken accident, which I assume Harris’ considers her just desserts. It seems a touch mean-spirited, to say the least. In fact, the “book” generally reads like a list of causes-of-death: Sundry characters, some of whom we last saw as children, are shot, drowned, suffer strokes, die in bar fights or from tragic accidental overdoses or breast cancer, expire mid-coitus, perish in a “freak construction accident” or a motorbike crash, or are crushed by a tree-branch whilst they sleep. One character I don’t recall is blown up by terrorists, one is afflicted by lupus as a punishment for her earlier transgressions and dies unmourned, and another dies in slow pain from a combination of arthritis and pneumonia, but his wife remarries happily, so that’s alright. Another unfortunate is killed by a werepanther and “The coroner didn’t know what to make of the body’s condition”, even though shifters are out of the closet now and authorities were previously able to recognise one in a half-changed state less than 24 hours after they made themselves aware to the public.

In none death-related matters, everyone gets married and has children as soon as possible. One of Tara’s children (the boy, obviously) somehow manages to become a senator, purely due to the time he was “read the riot act” by his “Aunt” Sookie after some teenage misdemeanour, Hoyt has a daughter named Moonlight, and some relative of Alcide’s is apparently divorced by his wife for having “dissed Sookie” at some point. Selah Pumphrey has an “unhappy life”, which serves her right for sleeping with Sookie’s ex. There are disturbing hints that Harris is going to subject the world to spin-off’s of both “Barry the Bellboy” and “Quinn the Sexist Meathead”. Most of the non-white characters go off to live with their own ethnic groups in weird little conclaves, which Harris obviously thinks is the natural order of things. Some character named Quiana Wong even opens an Asian shop selling kimonos, even though I’m pretty sure that she’s Chinese and Harris is an ignorant racist. Things reach new depth when we hear of a vampire version of Dancing with the Stars featuring Layla Larue Lemay, who is some sort of undead tongue-twister, followed by The Best Dressed Vamp and America’s Top Vampire Model. Basically Harris is determined to ruin vampires for everyone. I think she may have topped Vampire Baseballfor awfulness, although at least none of her terrible ideas have been committed to celluloid.

Meanwhile Bill Compton, the series’ most tenacious ex-boyfriend, becomes a millionaire due the use of slave-labour and unethical business practices. He also remains in love with Sookie because he is deeply tragic. He is rewarded for his exploitation and oppression by becoming King of Louisiana, which would be satire if Harris wasn’t so dumb.

Eric lives Happily-Ever-After in his sexual enslavement to Queen Freyda due to developing Stockholm Syndrome, although he is of course still in love with Sookie. To assuage his everlasting longing for her he eventually gets himself a new blond-haired, blue-eyed young man who resembles her as his vampire child. Not sure if this is supposed to be as creepy as it comes off.

Hunter, Sookie’s telepathic nephew, stupidly joins the army. His powers are consequently used for evil. Harris may write a spin-off for him too, if she can be arsed.

Jason had an idiot telepathic daughter (who, bearing in mind that Harris considers Sookie smart, must be pretty bloody dumb) who works in a dog-food factory, and a gigolo son. Eventually he dies for no reason whilst at work.

Sookie marries Sam and everything works out perfectly for her. She gets nearly 3 pages of text to tell the reader absolutely nothing about her smug, dreary life except which type of church she gets married in, which means nothing to me. Also, she wears white even though her meddling old ratbag gran disapproved of non-virgins wearing white, because the rules do not apply to Sookie. There is summat about her and Sam being invited to go live in fairyland one day, which I neither understood or cared about, and for some reason she calls one of her sons Jennings. Although I suppose it’s slightly less random that Quinn’s son being named Diederik.

It’s hard for me to reach any conclusions, since the whole thing is so lightweight as to barely exist. All I have learnt is that Charlaine Harris is a cynical, bitter old bitch who’s quite content to whore herself and her negligible writing ability for whatever profit is going. It almost makes me wish I was religious, just so that I would know for certain that the self-righteous old bigot would burn in hell.