Guilty Pleasures

Laurell K. Hamilton

I've been avoiding the Anita Blake books for years now, but I finally decided to break down and give the series a try. And my worst nightmares have been confirmed-- it's compulsively readable.

In case you've been living under a rock for the past decade, the plot: Anita Blake is an animator, a woman who can raise the dead, usually to answer prickly legal questions, in Missouri. (Yes. In Missouri.) Blake is not a big fan of the other undead wandering around-- vampires. This thanks to a nasty confrontation a few years before the action begins that left her with some nasty scars, not all of them physical. Now she's got a dilemma-- a vampire, whom she knew when he was still alive, shows up in her office with a job offer. Blake's boss is never one to say no to money, and the vampire's bosses are paying well. Even worse, she's conflicted-- they want her to hire on to track down someone who's killing vampires. What's a girl to do?

Hamilton introduces some characters here who've gone on to be exceptionally successful, lurking in the shadows of the New York Times Bestseller list every time they appear again in print. Odd for either genre horror (unless you're Stephen King) or genre romance (unless you're Danielle Steel), but here you have Laurell K. Hamilton writing genre novels that blend the two (and don't mistake these for the spate of imitators; Hamilton's work is much more on the horror side of the equation than anyone else you're going to read in this niche market) and cracking the NYT with every novel. Go figure. It's most likely because, for genre writing, this is pretty good stuff; well-plotted, with decently-written characters. Nothing worldbeating, but definitely readable. Fun stuff. I'll definitely be continuing on with the series.