Laurel K. Hamilton is a slight wonder as a writer, she has a technical skill level that is acceptable to good but amazingly manages to hit every cliche and stereotype you would expect this genre to have in dialogue, character and story. Reading the first in the series Guilty Pleasures was three of the funnest hours of my life. I had to stop at one point because I couldn't control my laughter.
Set in a similar world to that of True Blood, vampires have made their presence know in society and have even be recognised as citizens. Our hero, Anita Blake is a detective and also a necromancer, not a nymphomaniac... although from what I've heard of later books in the series she could be that as well. She is hired to investigate a murder of a vampire, but not without the proper motivation. As the vampires hypnotize a friend of hers, apparently vampires have the super abilities to completely control humans just by looking at them. I'll deal with the problems of this later, but Anita is somewhat immune due to her abilities as a necromancer. This is however the first in the large number of incredibly terrible things the supposed love interest does. Now. Ignoring the common trait of vampires getting a free-ride on anything terrible they do because they.... I don't know, usually talk with sexy accents. I don't know how anyone is meant to take Jean Claude Seriously. He is a french vampire who runs a special vampire strip club from which the book gets it's title, he wears... for the entire time, an open frilly poet shirt, with leather pants and thigh high leather boots over the leather pants. Just to give you the best idea I have included a picture from the graphic novel version.
We are meant to take this man seriously.
And I'm pretty sure most of his muscles don't really exist in anatomy... vampire or otherwise.
Anita is taken to meet the grand high eldest vampire of the city... and it is a little girl DUN DUN DUHHH. This book really is just a check list of vampire cliches. Lets see what have we had so far...
Human protagonist with vampire 'love' interest...
Check
Main vampire having some form of accent... that is sexy...
Check
Blatant corruption of innocence...
Check
Anyway, after a brush with the vampire master one of the key plot points of the series gets dropped, and that is that Jean Claude has made the first step to turning Anita into a human servant. Now I'm going to repeat that, a human servant. Something that happens completely against her will. Yeah... this love story is really going to annoy me by the end of it. Anita continues to stumble along in her quest to solve the mystery of the vampire serial killer, involving a few other human characters and some other vampire characters. I have to ask, are there any non good looking guys in this world. I mean, I'm not really complaining, wohoo hot guys! But do they all have to have the most basic archetypal stereotypes of what woman are supposed to go for? There's the bad guy who I am going to call the Heathcliff, this would be the Jean Claude and the one we are meant to go for, please note that when I say attractive I mean the book keeps telling us he's attractive. There's the sweetie, the one who may be a little off in their arrogance but that's just cause they need someone to understand , the one who probably just needs a hug, let us call him... the Ryan Reynolds. And for this we have Philip, someone whose tortured past has led him to become an arrogant stripper and former vampire junkie. He also dies. Sorry if that was your type ladies, but he's the first in a long line so don't you worry. And then the bad ass, the one who has come here to kick ass and chew bubble gum... and he's all out of gum. Although a little different, no doubt due to the fact that he is American instead of British I am going to call him the Bond, James Bond. And so we meet Edward... sighhhhhh. Edward is introduced and gives Anita a shotgun as a present and kills more vampires then the supposed protagonist... and my god he is so fucking bad ass! I mean he's just the coolest fucking thing in this entire series!!! He's... *cough*
Soooo... ummm... back to the plot...
Essentially Anita discovers who is killing vampires, takes on and kills the head vampire, the 10 year old Nikolaos... whose name I have no idea how to pronounce and also kills the vampire Valentine. Valentine was what could have been an interesting plot device for future, Valentine attacked Anita and gave her a massive scar, and she scarred his face with holy water. Despite no doubt fighting stronger vampires this one had a place in the back of her mind because he was attacked her when she was still new and young and vulnerable. I really think killing him was a missed opportunity, it wasn't even some grand final fight, she injected him with liquid silver whilst he slept... what heart pounding action!
The main plot points to take away from this though is that Anita has received 2 or the 4 marks that will make her Jean Claude's, who has become master of the vampires in the city, human servant. She even has an opportunity to kill him but decides not to because, and I quote 'I may regret it later'. Gahhhh. Oh Anita, I'm sure you wouldn't have... its not like you don't know some attractive strong but not completely psycho guys... like Edward...
Link to Twilight bashing http://the-snarktress.blogspot.com/
