"Charlaine Harris - Sookie Stackhouse 05 - Dead as a Doornail" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harris Charlaine)

Ace books by Charlaine Harris

DEAD UNTIL DARK

LIVING DEAD IN DALLAS

CLUB DEAD

DEAD TO THE WORLD

DEAD AS A DOORNAIL

Berkley Prime Crime books by Charlaine Harris

SHAKESPEARE’S TROLLOP

SHAKESPEARE’S COUNSELOR

This book is dedicated to a wonderful woman I don’t get to see often enough. Janet Hutchings (then an
editor at Walker, now editor of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine) was brave enough to take me on many
years ago after I’d taken a long sabbatical from writing. God bless her.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I didn’t thank Patrick Schulz for loaning me his Benelli for the last book—sorry, Son. My friend Toni L.
P. Kelner, who pointed out some problems in the first half of the book, is due a big hats-off. My friend
Paula Woldan gave me moral support and some information on pirates, and was willing to endure me on
Talk Like a Pirate Day. Her daughter Jennifer saved my life by helping me prepare the manuscript. Shay,
a Faithful Reader, had the great idea for the calendar. And in thanking the Woldan family, I have to
include Jay, a volunteer firefighter for many years, who shared his knowledge and expertise with me.
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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