The Laughing Corpse (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, #2)

by Laurell K. Hamilton

[Berls]

Why oh why did I wait so long to pick this series up? All the recommendations, all the times I held the books in my hands and had them sitting on my bookshelf, only to return them unread, sell them to Half Price Books, or donate them to a library because I thought I wasn't interested. Well, at least someone recommended them again and I finally said, "there's a reason I keep ending up with these books" and picked them up. Because damn they are good.

This is only book 2 in the series, but I will say it's not living up to all the talk about it being a super sexy series. I don't know if that happens later or I've just read so much true erotica that it takes a bit more to get me these days... but that's okay - the suspense, action, and characters are keeping me fully engaged.

I think I enjoyed this one mainly because of the character development with Anita. We get to see a bit more of her back story and a TON of potential for where this series could go. We also see her morals and where she draws the line loud and clear. She may have killed, but she doesn't do it lightly. And she genuinely cares about people.

That's not to say that the story wasn't great. The mystery was no where near as obvious in this book as book one and I was pretty stumped about exactly who/how these REALLY TRULY AWFUL murders were happening. I had my suspicions, but I didn't know how to put them together. Oh and, if like me, you like books that go there with getting brutal (without being horror, because that doesn't work for me) this book will deliver.

I have a feeling I would love this in audio, but I'm doing a pretty decent job killing it in print - which says a lot.