Review: Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 4 The Lunatic Café by Laurell K. Hamilton

Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 4 The Lunatic Café by Laurell K. Hamilton

The Lunatic Café is an (almost) all lycanthrope story. Shapeshifters have appeared in the series before, but this is the first time that we start to peek into their peculiar and highly disturbing society. From the opening pages when Anita is hired to find a man’s missing wife (she happens to be a werewolf), to her discovery that her boyfriend, Richard, is in a life and death struggle for control of his pack (a struggle he does not seem to be able to credit is really life and death), to the discovery that many other shapeshifters have gone missing, to the remains of a body ripped to shreds by a werewolf, Anita is confronted by lycanthrope-centered problems at every turn (and that doesn’t even mention the highly disturbing snuff film). She also begins to learn a little about the problems each of the lycanthrope species contend with—both with each other and simply surviving in a world that is extremely hostile to them.

 

At the same time, a two-hundred-year-old vampire has set her sights on capturing the love of Jean Claude and she sees Anita as competition even though Anita is desperate to be rid of the Master of the City. She seems to think that the best way to be rid of Anita is to kill her—and she’s crazy enough that Jean Claude’s threats only seem to motivate her to do the job more quickly and brutally. Oh, and did I mention that everyone’s favorite assassin has returned to St. Louis on a job that even the most devoted adherent to law and order will cheer him on to complete?

 

This novel has two scenes that have often recurred in my mind over the past nineteen years since I first read it—that’s always a sign of powerful writing. It also has a very disturbing relationship evolving as Jean Claude—fearful of losing Anita even though he has never actually had her—forces her to begin dating him on an equal basis with Richard to give him a “fair chance” to win her heart. If she doesn’t, he kills Richard. I know that Hamilton wants this love triangle to come into full existence, but this stalker behavior is really troubling and I’m frankly surprised Anita doesn’t decide to simply kill Jean Claude after he makes the threat. (Edward would gladly help her do it.) She justifies her decision not to off this threat to her life and happiness by saying that a twisted part of her loves Jean Claude, but in no other part of the series thus far does Anita allow herself to be bullied except here. It’s the first significant characterization weakness I recognize in the plot. It’s almost like Hamilton was reading those 1990s romances in which the man has to utterly humiliate the woman early in the book so she can hate him before she falls in love with him. It didn’t make sense then and it still doesn’t now.

 

There’s also one other character who I thought was poorly drawn. There’s the legendary swan prince, a hunter so callous that he was cursed to turn into a swan to make him learn to be gentle and kind. This fails (he’s still callous), but the now immortal hunter should have become a super-hunter in his human form. He seems to have given up this side of his personality, when I would argue that being able to recover from any wound would have enhanced his ability to pursue his martial endeavors.

 

All of that being said, this book is simply packed with action and will keep you racing through the pages from beginning to end.

 

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