Ex-Library copy

I really enjoyed this book, just as I did Affliction, and love the return to the more crime/thriller storyline. However, it gets 4/5 instead of full marks because the end/final chase of the bad guy came very quickly and abruptly. This seems to be becoming a trend with LKH and it continues to bug me. I also had figured out who the bad guy was about half way through the story which sort of made the conclusion somewhat boring. ( )

This is the book with all the fun story lines.
We have a lot in this episode:
-JC & Anita getting it on at the Circus
-Anita getting in locker room fights
-Kane and Asher making bad choices
-A mixer with all the available female tigers
-Anita arguing graveside about the need to sacrifice a cow to get the "good zombie" that's over 200 years old and said 200 year old zombie being so life-like that his people take him to Denny's where he discovers the joys of a Western Skillet (and love on this side of the realm)
-Zerbrowski coming to Anita's rescue when she has trouble laying down the dead
-Micah discovering a whole 'nother side to himself
-Anita's tiger taking the wheel
-Creepy zombie sex porn with zombies that have more than what meets the eye
-Anita and the Swat team taking out the bad guys through walls
-Nathanial getting pissy about wanting to get a proposal of his own
-Domino getting his ass handed to him by Nicky
And much more!
I am always hunting for those story lines and kept forgetting they are all in this book. ( )

[b:Dead Ice|21066968|Dead Ice (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, #24)|Laurell K. Hamilton|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1421548154l/21066968._SY75_.jpg|40431461] by [a:Laurell K. Hamilton|9550|Laurell K. Hamilton|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1399387919p2/9550.jpg]
Genres: Adult, Paranormal, Romance, Suspense
2 Stars

I am was a big Anita Blake fan but this & the last book 'Jason' have left me disappointed.
To many words wasted on explaining things from previous books. It really bogged down the story & the space could have been used for her doing her U. S. Marshall job.

The whole case seemed to be a very small part of the book. She took very little active duty in the case, yet somehow comes out 'Saving the Day'.

The relationship parts of the book seemed to bounce around to much.
There was no depth.

In 'Affliction' there was true depth of feeling & true investigation. I truly enjoyed that book.

But these last 2 have left me

Dissatisfied. ( )

Like a lot of other reviewers, I have to ask myself why I keep reading these. I suppose it’s obsessive-compulsive disorder. In case you’re not familiar with the series, they’re set in an alternate United States where various preternatural creatures – vampires, werebeasts, ghouls, etc. – exist, and have civil rights (as long as they behave; for example, vampires have to have consent). There are a lot of interesting implications do that – for example, can vampires collect Social Security?

The series heroine, Anita Blake, is a professional necromancer, able to raise the dead temporarily; there’s interesting implications to that, too; you can find out where late Aunt Agatha hid the family silver, and in this novel someone’s reanimated to settle various historical questions.

And Ms. Blake is also a licensed vampire executioner – yes, vampires have civil rights but due process has to be suspended for creatures that are supernaturally strong, fast, and able to hypnotize with their gaze.

And Ms. Blake is a US Marshal, for a unit specializing in supernatural cases. In this case she needs to help in a case involving zombie porn

Last, Ms. Blake is involved in a polyamorous relationship with a vampire and an assortment of werebeasts; I haven’t been keeping up with the series so I’ve lost track of how many wereleopards, werewolves, and werelions are involved. (That also raises an interesting question; what animals qualify? There’s a wereswan, so it’s not limited to mammals, but are there werecows? Weremice? Werewhales? Are there fossil records of werebeasts or vampires?)

You would think this would make for excitement – but no, it’s tragically dull. Now and then there’s a little splash of interest, but most of the time it’s just page after page of Anita discussing supernatural politics. You’d think polyamory with werebeasts and vampires would be at least slightly titillating – sort of like a costume variant of the orgy scene from a 1970s porn movie – but instead there are seemingly endless negotiations over who’s going to do what to whom, and rather than frenzied action it’s like watching a Congressional hearing over price supports and tariffs for paperclip manufacturers, if half of Congress were furries. ( )