Guilty Pleasures

"Guilty Pleasures" is the first of the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series, by Laurell Hamilton. The title is based on a Vampire club of the same name, where humans can watch vampires perform in various ways that are legal in the US.

What makes the series unique is the strong, tough-minded character of the heroine and narrator Anita Blake. Before "Guilty Pleasures" vampire stories rarely had female leads, let alone one with the hard-nosed style of Anita Blake. She is a professional animator; she raises zombies to help settle court cases, wills or just because people need to say their goodbyes. The vampires are now active participants in American life.

Hamilton's vampires are of beautiful, deadly and follow their own code of ethics. Many humans have become intrigued by them, but many others are deeply suspicious. To Anita they are monsters who, when they go out of control, must be killed. Now U.S. law protects vampires that behave themselves. Even so, someone starts killing the vampires of St. Louis. Since it is now illegal to kill vampires without a warrant, Anita works closely with the police to try and catch the killer. Authorities are making little progress. Angered, two of the strongest vampires in the city, Jean-Claude and Nikolaos, convince Anita to hunt down the killer.

Jean-Claude is one of the modern romantic vampires, easy to look at with fine manners and style. Nikolaos, on the other hand, is a thousand year old sadistic horror in the body of a thirteen year old girl. Her powers are unimaginable and dark hungers hide under her innocent looks. The female vampire takes an immediate dislike to Anita's feisty style and our heroine spends as much time dodging Nikolaos' efforts to injure and enslave her as she does seeking the killer. Jean-Claude comes under attack as well as he tries to help Anita.

Anita finds herself in a number of hair-raising situations as she seeks to discover the killer. Along the way she is plagued by vampires, wererats, ghouls, other animators, as well as fellow humans.
Hamilton's way with characters is one of her great strengths. Her vampires and their human servants are vivid personalities. This gives the novel a realistic feel that comes as a surprise in the vampire genre.

The plot is fast paced, and intriguing often moving from cliff-hanger to horrific confrontation without pause. There is a steady sexual undercurrent that veers towards sadistic and fetish oriented pleasures. It is a natural outgrowth of the vampire personality and is as chilling as it is erotic. In "Guilty Pleasures" it is an effective plot device that keeps the heat turned up. If you are a vampire story fan you will find Laurell Hamilton's efforts deeply satisfying.
Warning: This is not a book for younger readers; it is very graphic and can be very gruesome at times. Some scenes may be highly upsetting to younger readers and others who are sensitive to violence. It is more on the lines of Exorcist than Buffy the vampire slayer.

The Laughing Corpse

The Laughing Corpse" is the second in the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series by Laurell K. Hamilton. The focus in this book is more on her main job as an animator of zombies than as the person the vampires call The Executioner. Once again the title has taken the name of a St. Louis hangout for those who like to visit the dark side, in this case a comedy club.

This time around Anita is in way over her head with a whole bunch of serious problems. A human mob lord Harold Gaynor wants to pay her big money, a million dollars big, to raise someone who has been dead for a couple of hundred years and does not like it that Anita has refused. She refuses, because each time she raises a zombie it requires a blood sacrifice, the older the zombie the bigger the sacrifice. For one that old it would be a human sacrifice.

The voodoo priestess, Dominga Salvidor, for the entire Midwest has learned how to put a person's soul back in their dead body, which stops the zombies from decaying. Anita refuses to help her raise more zombies for profit. Meanwhile, Jean-Claude, the Master Vampire of St. Louis who has already put two of his marks upon our heroine, demands Anita start acting like his human servant. In addition to all these issues, Anita also works with the police department as a consult, the case they are working relates to a savage zombie that is going around murdering families in their home, making her problems with three powerful people who refuse to take "No" for an answer rather inconsequential. Like it says on the coffee mug her boss would not let her have at the office, "It's a dirty job and I get to do it." Anita is left fighting off Gaynor's goons, a murderous zombie, and all the nasty preternatural monsters Dominga Salvador can send her way when she refuses to work with her, and the advances of the vampire master of the city Jean Claude.

This is definitely a horror book, the type I usually avoid because they give me nightmares. There is a lot going on here, but Hamilton weaves the various cases, most of which would have sustained an entire novel, into a coherent narrative. I really was surprised when everything came together in the end.


Warning: this is a gruesome book. Younger readers of "The Laughing Corpse" are going to be upset by several of the scenes, especially when Anita investigates the bloody crime scenes and the climatic encounter. Those who come to this series because of their love for Buffy the Vampire Slayer need to be told that this is a much darker world where the violence is brutally horrific and not beautifully choreographed. These books are much more intense. If they made this into a film it would give "The Exorcist" a run for its money.