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 If you haven't read the Anita Blake books this is a good one to start with. The only two characters in this book that are in others are Anita and Edward, and we readers didn't know much about Edward to begin with. Anita's background is incidental to the story. Note: her previous romantic entanglements are not part of this story, except as a problem Anita is thinking about. Hamilton takes Anita out of St. Louis and sends her to New Mexico to deal with some thing that's been killing the locals. She goes at the request of her old teacher Edward, the only guy alive who's tougher than Anita herself. She finds herself surrounded by Aztec vampires, serial killers, and drug-dealer necromancers, not to mention a hostile police force, and she's fighting against all of them to make sure no one else gets killed. This was a great adventure. As a warning, this book contains some serious gore and violence.
Young Suk
The book was more like the old style of Anita. How so? Anita is not the super woman she was in Blue Moon and Burnt Offerings. She had very few new magical powers. She relied more on her wits and firepower. The mystery was the key plot focus - not who she was going to sleep with next. This book was a GREAT way for Anita to get back into what she does best - killing the evil monsters who harm the innocent.
The only person capable of killing as well as Anita happens to be Edward, better known as Death. He has saved her life on several occasions and she owes him for killing one of his cohorts. Edward calls in his marker, asking for her help with a preternatural creature like none he has ever encountered before. Anita comes to Santa Fe to meet an Edward totally different then Death. Edward is engaged to a woman with children and he seems to cherish all of them. As she works with Edward to defeat this seemingly invincible creature, Anita now knows she cannot hide from her own nature. The newest Anita Blake novel, OBSIDIAN BUTTERFLY, is a great tale that is the best story in a wonderful alternate earth series. Part of the reason the story line is so good is that the enigmatic avenging angel Edward plays a starring role that makes him more complete and human. Anita retains her take no prisoners attitude, but is beginning to show signs of doubt and the need to choose that makes her even more complex of a character than before. This heart stopping, mesmerizing tale captures the audience's attention from the very first sentence and gives them a reading experience like no other. First time readers of this novel will scamper for this talented author's previous books. Harriet Klausner |
this book makes you wonder about the mental state of the writer, read all the bad revies of this book and you will get the picture. it drifts endlessly for the first half of the book then degrades into a... something worse. the author uses images of phisical and sexual abuse on children, flayed bodiess, bodies ripped to peices, lots and lots of blood, twisted rituals and psycopathic alies, just to name a few, to bludgen a sence of danger and fear into you which she reminds you constantly of by telling you how dangerous everyone is because the heros (using the term loosely) are almost as willing to kill each other as capture the bad guy and in the end 75% of the gore and abuse and endless naratives on the dangerous and cold characters has absolutely no meaning what so ever. this isnt a mystery because there is nothing for you to figure out by the clues it is simply an exercise in how grose you can make a book and still sell it at you local mall bookstore.
