This is book 17 in the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series. It starts out feeling very much like her first six novels in that Anita will be The Executioner tracking down a serial-killer Vampire, Vittorio. Anita is joined by long-time friend and vampire hunter rival Death (aka Edward, who is masquerading as his good alter-ego Ted), and two other vampire hunters: Bernardo and Olaf. Anita is mailed a human head at her job Animators Inc. from Las Vegas. So, she immediately flies out there to meet her other fellow vampire hunter chumps during the day- so yes- Jean-Claude is still asleep. That means the only time we get to “see” Jean-Claude in this installment is through a couple phone conversations Anita has with him.

Now, this all SEEMS like a very promising book, and it is- for the first 100 pages. After that it’s a free fall. Not from too much sex- I believe there are only two very short sex scenes- but from pointlessness. There is nothing but bitter dialog in this book. Anita, once again, has to prove to cops (the LVPD) and SWAT out there that she is just as strong, oh wait, that’s right, that she is actually STRONGER than men. I’m all for women’s rights about equality, equal pay, and all that stuff… but OH MY GOSH- I do not need to read 300+ pages of this horribly pointless and BORING dialog! Oh yeah, additional dialog has to do with the same men who believe she is a petite weak little women also believe she is a slut- so she tries her best to defend herself on that front as well. Other than the boring dialog Anita and group run around trying to find and capture Vittorio. TRY being the operative word. There is no action, no suspense, no nothing… That means no gun fights either! During this whole book Anita never fires one shot from any (of her many personal arsenal) weapons!

The ONLY part that was interesting was her interaction with Olaf, fellow vampire hunter, and ex-serial killer. That was very amusing seeing Olaf shake Anita up a bit. Other than that (maybe 50-100 pages worth of good)… that doesn’t make up for the rest of this book. A terrible waste of paper. Can Ms. Hamilton ever write like she did her first six books? Does she not remember how to write action? Is the only thing she write well are metaphysical sex scenes? If she can’t then she just better switch to erotica and kill off Anita. I’ve been a loyal and long time fan of Ms. Hamilton… and the only reason I continue to read is for my love of her vampire characters Jean-Claude and Asher. If that means I will only read her series from the library and never buy another book of hers again, unless it is worth it, then so be it.