reviews

Guilty Pleasures
by Laurell K. Hamilton

Guilty Pleasures is an aptly titled novel. The first in a now lengthy series starring Anita Blake, vampire hunter, it is a raucous fusion of hard boiled detective and neo-gothic undead romance genres. But this is not the weepy angst ridden world of Anne Rice. Vampires are an acknowledged minority population, complete with ghettos and court battles for civil rights. Though an Animator by trade (raising dead loved ones for a fee), Ms. Blake is the tiny hell-bent-for-leather Executioner for any unfortunate blood sucker who happens to run afoul with the law. The state sponsors her unique form of vigilante justice since prison is hardly a deterrent for near immortals. This time, though, Blake is blackmailed by the most powerful vampire in St. Louis to find the person responsible for a series of vampire deaths. Trust is a quality in limited supply in Anita’s line of work. Despite this fact, she traverses the seedy vampire counter culture with the help of Phillip, a human performer (read: victim) at the vampire strip club Guilty Pleasures. As she is struggles to find the killer, she slips closer to virtual slavery as the eternally bound human servant to two competing ancient vampires. 

Though heavily plot driven, we do gain some insight into Anita’s values and motivations. It is clear from the start that author Laurel Hamilton envisioned this novel as the first of many, since much of the key character development reads like the pilot of a new television series. Exposition is often presented without cause or care for its direct connection to the plot at hand. Yet we know, as readers, that this information will become useful in future novels. This is not a liability in the novel. It is perhaps its greatest strength. Hamilton creates a coherent, albeit extremely strange, fictional world by parceling out necessary information about its nature and origin. The world itself becomes as great a mystery as any crime Anita could be sent to solve. And each successive novel will give us greater but always partial insight into it. A fun, guilt-free read.