The sensational new novel from the New York Times bestselling author featuring her vampire-hunting heroine Anita Blake Once you tell someone certain things, like, say, you got mailed a human head in a box, they tend to think you're crazy. Anita Blake's reputation has taken some hits. Not on the work front, where she has the highest kill count of all the legal vampire executioners in the country, but on the personal front. No one seems to trust a woman who sleeps with the monsters. Still, when a vampire serial killer sends her a head from Las Vegas, Anita has to warn Sin City's local authorities what they're dealing with. Only it's worse than she thought. Several officers and one executioner have been slain -- paranormal style...Anita heads to Las Vegas, where she's joined by three other federal marshals, including the ruthless Edward hiding behind his mild-mannered persona. It's a good thing Edward always has her back, because, when she gets close to the bodies, Anita senses "tiger" too strongly to ignore it. The were-tigers are very powerful in Las Vegas, which means the odds of her rubbing someone important the wrong way just got a lot higher...
I had such high hopes for this book! Anita was back to being an executioner! She’s on the road, so her stable of men will be smaller! Maybe there will be less of the metaphysical stuff!
And then I was so, so disappointed. If there was ever a book in need of an editor with a sharp red pen, it was this one.
The worst part of the book? The talking, talking, and more talking. Everyone had to discuss every little freakin’ thing, at the most inopportune times, and ad nauseum. How many times do we need to revisit the “other people think Anita’s a slut cuz she has so many boyfriends” point? Or the “Olaf the serial killer/U.S. Marshall wants Anita and he makes her really uncomfortable” point? And in the middle of a supposedly fast-paced search for a serial killer? There is just a ridiculous amount of discussion and pissing contests, for lack of a better term. The sex is toned down quite a bit in this one, with the wildest scene actually only alluded to, but even that wasn’t enough to save this book. I did enjoy the final confrontation, but it should have been about 200 pages sooner than it was. I’ve stuck through this series for 17 books, but I’m not sure I’ll bother with #18.
