Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 20 Hit List by Laurell K. Hamilton

Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 20 Hit List by Laurell K. Hamilton

This novel is a big step up from the recent one in this series—a welcome return to the sort of problems that made the early books so great. Anita and everyone’s favorite assassin, Edward, in their roles as Preternatural Branch U.S. Marshals are trying to track down a supernatural bad guy (or guys) who is ripping weretigers to pieces. They can’t share all of their knowledge about who the bad guys are (they’re the Harlequin—supernatural vampire and lycanthrope assassins introduced in book 15) because the Harlequin have a long history of killing all normal humans who find out they exist. There’s a little bit of law enforcement politics and one jerk of a marshal determined to belittle Anita and besmirch her reputation (we never do find out why) but mostly what we have are some really scary bad guys who have a personal issue with Anita.

 

That personal issue is enough to up the stakes considerably, because the Harlequin work for the mother of all vampires and even though her body was destroyed in a previous book, she’s still around and determined to possess Anita and take over her body. With the Harlequin trying to kidnap Anita to facilitate the possession, the world is literally at stake.

 

Throw in a nice subplot about a female marshal who is going to lose her job because she gets infected with lycanthropy and the return of serial killer Olaf who is absolutely certain that Anita wants to be his girlfriend, and you have a ton of problems keeping the plot boiling.