Reread. Back in the day, when Anita wasn't a power hungry, nympho :(

This book reminds how great the Anita Blake series once was. Here Anita Blake has a job as an animator (raising the dead for information for the police force) and isn't spending any of her time lazing in bed with her posse of wimpy beauteous men, she even has girlfriends and we are introduced to an intriguing character named Edward (I had forgotten all about him!).

This is the book where she meets Jean Claude whose charms she is easily able to resist. Vampires are being murdered and master vampire, Nikolaos (sp?) demands her expertise to track down the killer. Here Anita is still known as the "Executioner" and lives by her words "I don't date vampires. I kill them." In order to get more information into the secret underground vampire scene she pals around with vampire junkie Phillip. Phillip is the first inkling into Hamilton's obsession with weak-willed, beautiful man-boys who show up and take up residence in later books. Phillip's character is more than physical perfection though, he is sympathetic in a way and a useful tool to progress the plot of this book.

The Anita in this book is strong-willed, independent, judgmental and abrasive but has a wicked barbed tongue which I find missing in later books. The black humor lightens up the darkness and makes Anita approachable while in later books there is little, if anything, left to like about the character who is obsessed with power, sex and is often just plain mean. I may reread the first few books but will stop when the ardour makes its appearance.

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