So, this story begins on a rainy night in Louisiana. An evil spirit, and Imp Shaloop, comes to Merlotte's and traps the staff and patrons. It is an old Choctaw spirit that eats souls with evil thoughts. He calls himself Ted and requires all of the patrons to tell the most shameful secret about themselves before he will let them go. Sookie, Eric, Tara, Sam, Lafayette, and Jason willingly tell their stories. Bill is the last to tell his. But the spirit is a trickster whose real purpose is to take revenge on Eric because Eric refused to help the trickster spirit's mother when the spirit begged for help. The spirit also kills a number of the patrons in Merlotte's including the girl who was Jason's date. But since the characters killed by Ted, in the Star Trek terminology, are all "red shirts", we don't really miss them. There deaths just serve to ramp up the sense of danger. After the trickster collects all the stories, he forces Eric to feel all the emotions he collected which is very hard on a vampire. Then he lets them go. But Eric sticks around to talk to Sookie about something he really fears - a crazy vampire that he thought Godric had staked. Then the book ends on that cliffhanger.The story was interesting and had some backstory about our favorite characters that help make them more well-rounded people. The full-color art was well-done. The characters mostly look like they do on the television show. I did have trouble recognizing Tara in a couple of the frames. This would be a good book for fans of True Blood to have if they, like me, are waiting for the next season to come out on DVD.
