Guilty Fun!

Well monster movie fans, have I got the series for you. Imagine a world where vampires, ghouls, zombies and werewolves are literally part of everyday life. Well, Anita Blake lives in such a world. Sounds like pure fun, doesn't it? Well it is, but don't get me wrong, this stuff isn't for the kiddies. There's plenty of violence, gore and sex to go around. Let's summarize, shall we?

Anita Blake is a licensed vampire executioner as well as a professional animator. No, she doesn't draw cartoons, she's actually paid to re-animate the dead. And you thought your job was tough. In this particular world, vampirism is legal in the U.S, but when things get out of hand Anita is called in to deal with the undead as it's illegal to kill them without a license. It can be pretty unsavory work, but it suits her fine. She can't stand the creeps.

In this story, master vampires are being murdered by an unknown force, and Anita is hired by the very creatures she's paid to execute to find the killer. She's reluctant at first, but figures if this thing is powerful enough to destroy master vampires, what's to stop it from turning its attention to humans. Problem is, in order to investigate, Anita has to meet with the master vampire of the city, and believe me, this is one tough customer. Her first stop however, is Guilty Pleasures, which is a vampire-owned nightclub. The proprietor is a master vamp named Jean-Claude, whom Anita has a very difficult time hating. I can't really divulge too much more, but suffice to say there's plenty of action.

If this sounds to you like simplistic garbage, believe me it's not. I'm an avid reader in the horror genre, and I count authors such as Koontz, King, Barker, Saul and Andrews as among my favorites. And, while Hamilton is quite different from anything that I'm used to reading, I'd have add her to my list of favorites. Despite the seemingly less-serious subject matter, the book was well written, and the characters are complex (especially Anita) and really quite infectious.

Guilty Pleasures is the first in a series of Anita Blake Vampire Hunter books by Laurel K Hamilton. A series I plan to read faithfully, as I've already started on the second book The Laughing Corpse. I'll be back to let you know how it turns out.