Guest Review: The Laughing Corpse (An Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Novel) by Laurell K. Hamilton

Reviewer: Melissa
The Laughing Corpse by Laurell K. Hamilton
Series: Anita Blake #2
Also in this series: Guilty Pleasures, Circus of the Damned, The Killing Dance
Publisher: Headline
Publication Date: October 1st 2009
Genres: Fiction
Pages: 300
Add It: Goodreads
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Series Rating:

'The older the zombie, the bigger the death needed to raise it.'
After a few centuries, the only death 'big enough' is a human sacrifice.
I know because I'm an animator. My name is Anita Blake. Working for Animators, Inc. is just a job - like selling insurance. But all the money in the world wasn't enough for me to take on the particular job Harold Gaynor was offering. Somebody else did, though - a rogue animator.
Now he's not just raising the dead... he's raising Hell. And it's up to me to stop it.

The Laughing Corpse is the second book in the Anita Blake series. I enjoyed the first, the second is just as good, and now I’m hooked. This is another piece of Anita’s life, and what she is up against. Anita is a very busy girl: she raises the dead to pay her bills, works on the side with the Police RPIT department (Regional Preternatural Investigation Team) handling supernatural crime, and slays vampires.

Jean-Claude, the new master Vampire, is still after Anita. He is trying to make her his human slave. Which totally has it benefits, but Anita has a strong attachment to her soul, so she fights her attraction to him. Anita is an animator by profession, which means she raises corpses, making them zombies. Mr. Gaynor, potential client, wants her to raise a 283 yr old corpse. But, in order to do it, she would have to sacrifice a human. She refuses. Man o’ man is he persistent. Money, violence, blackmail whatever it will take, Mr. Gaynor will try.

In Anita’s side job working for the police, she is chasing after some THING. Whatever it is, just scares the hell out of me. It is going across the city, consuming families, the whole family, very messily, leaving body parts here and there. And if that wasn’t enough to keep her busy, the most powerful voodoo priestess in the Midwest, Dominga Salvador, is trying to recruit her. Dominga plays in the dark side of Voodoo and Anita doesn’t want anything to do with it. But, Anita is Anita, and offends Dominga. Not good, not good at all, someone who can conjure up creatures of the night is not a person you want to piss off.

I like how there is more than one bad guy, and multiple things going on at one time. The story itself is good. I also like the characters, old and new, they are all interesting. It really makes the pages just fly by.

My favorite quote from the book:

I nodded. “Okay, you got a deal.” It was a business expense. Computer paper, ink pens medium point, one prostitute, manila file folders. See, it fit right in.

Now for the parts I didn’t like. Anita’s relationship with Jean-Claude isn’t moving fast enough for me, but I will survive. The other piece that I did not like has to do with children. Families are being eaten. I can deal with that, but there are just some parts that have to do with the children that are too graphic for me. (Spoilers, highlight to read)One part in particular, at a crime scene she picks up a toddlers hand (that is all there is left of the child) and pretended to throw it at a cop. It straight up made me gag. I have small children myself, not something I want to picture.

Overall a little graphic, but I’m still addicted.

4.25 out of 5

This book is available from Berkley. You can buy it here or here in e-format.

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