Blood Noir

[Editor's Note: This is a combined review with THE HARLEQUIN]--Vampire hunter Anita Blake returns in Hamilton's popular series. Narrator Cynthia Holloway does little voicing, and this approach works well because most of the story's characters are male, and male voices are a challenge for her. Still, her wonderful delivery has lots of inflection and feeling, and her treatment of the erotic scenes in Hamilton's work is exquisite. The book is replete with a multitude of "were-animals"--from rats to lions, tigers, and leopards, as well as the traditional werewolf. Holloway's use of a variant pronunciation of this key word form throughout is a distraction. Still, this production will succeed with lovers of vampire fantasy, especially those who enjoy Hamilton's treatment of eroticism. M.C. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine

April 21, 2008
The florid 16th Anita Blake novel (after 2007's The Harlequin
) updates Anita's endlessly erotic adventures as a living vampire with many weird lovers. Anita serves her vampire sweetie Jean-Claude, Master of the City of St. Louis, obsessed with feeding him and her own need to leech off of others' sexual pleasure or “ardeur” while retaining her rep as vampire executioner (despite the seeming conflict of interest), U.S. marshal and necromancer. She's also accompanying her bed-buddy Jason Schuyler to visit his dying estranged father in North Carolina. After arriving, Jason's mistaken for his rich cousin Keith Summerland, who's ditched his bride-to-be to run off with the wife of a vampire Master, giving Anita a case to solve between wild orgies with wereanimals. Hamilton chronicles Anita's escapades with a growing air of ennui, which longtime readers can't help sharing as sex increasingly takes the place of plot and character development.