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.