Hit List
Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, Book 20
by Laurell K. Hamilton
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Pub. Ed. $27.95
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Hit List
1
THE MAIN PIECE of the body lay on the ground, on its back in the middle of a smooth grassy field. In the predawn gloom everything looked gray, but there were scuffed and paler places around the field; I think we were in standing in the middle of a softball field. The “we” was Edward, U.S. Marshal Ted Forrester, and me, U.S. Marshal Anita Blake. Edward was his real name, the real him. Forrester was his secret identity, like Clark Kent for Superman, but to the other marshals he was good ol’ boy Ted, once a bounty hunter, now a marshal, grandfathered in under the Preternatural Endangerment Act just like me. I’d been a vampire executioner, not a bounty hunter. But either way, there we stood with real badges; legally we were real cops. Edward still took assassination jobs if the pay was high enough, or the hit interesting enough. He specialized in killing only dangerous things, like wereanimals and vampires. Crime fighting had actually begun to take up most of his time. Work does interfere with your hobbies.
There were other marshals over talking to the local police, but it was
just Edward and me standing in the middle of the scattered body parts. Maybe the others had gotten tired of looking at them; we had come straight from the airport in Tacoma to the crime scene. The other cops had been here longer. Dismembered bodies did lose their charm pretty fast.
I fought the urge to huddle in my Windbreaker with U.S. Marshal
in big letters on it. It was fifty freaking degrees here. Whoever heard of fifty being the regular temperature in August? It was a hundred-plus with heat index at home in St. Louis. The stop before this one had been Alabama. Fifty degrees felt amazingly cold after all that heat and humidity. The light softened around us and I could see the body parts better. It didn’t make me like them any better.
“Is the body lying on its back, or its ass?” I asked.
“You mean because it’s bisected at midchest and the parts are about
ten feet away?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Does it matter?” he asked. He pushed his hand toward a cowboy hat
that he’d left in the car that brought us from the airport. Ted wore a well-loved, well-creased cowboy hat, and the fact that the hat gesture had become habitual said just how much time Edward was spending as his legal alter ego. He settled for running his hand through his short blond hair. He was five foot eight, which seemed tall to me at five- three.
“I guess not.” In my head I thought, Problems like that are what you
think about when you stare down at a dismembered body, because otherwise you want to run screaming, or throw up. I hadn’t thrown up on a body in years, but the St. Louis police had never let me live it down.
From the book HITLIST by Laurell K. Hamilton. Copyright © 2011 by Laurell K. Hamilton. Reprinted by permission of Berkley Books, an imprint of Penguin Group.
Hit List
New York Times bestselling author Laurell K. Hamilton returns with Hit List, 20th in the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, series.
U.S. Marshalls Anita and Edward are investigating a string of weretiger homicides across the country—a frustrating task. The authorities are sure it’s the work of a serial killer, but Anita knows the Harlequin are behind the attacks. Yet she and Edward dare not breathe the name because to do so means an irrevocable death sentence from those Harlequin still loyal to Marmee Noir, the Mother of All Darkness. Edward believes the attacks are a ruse to lure Anita away from the protection of Jean-Claude and his guards.
Mother Dark was supposed to have died in an explosion, but as the primordial first vampire, the dark creator of all vampires, she’s hard to kill. And she has decided that now is the time to control all the vampires in America. All she needs is a body—Anita’s.
If Anita isn’t careful, she could learn a whole new meaning to sharing her body, one that has nothing to do with the bedroom. And if Marmee Noir can’t succeed, she means to see that no one else can use Anita’s body, ever again. Even Belle Morte, not always Anita’s friend, has sent word: “Run if you can…”
Hardcover Book : 336 pages
Publisher: Putnam Berkley Pub. Group ( June 07, 2011 )
Item #: 13-397668
ISBN: 9780425241134
Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 8.25 inches
Product Weight: 13.0 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
The Hit is weak. 
July 04, 2011
I am not a hater. I really love the work of Laurell K. Hamilton. Anita Blake is my favorite vampire hunter. But that being said, this book is weak. It's nothing like Laurell's earlier works. The level of detail is almost non-existent. The book is written like the characters are shadows of themselves. Anita is still afraid, Ted is still a cut out as is Bernardo. And Otto is the only monster you get to see a little into his head. Heck, even the Mother of all Vampires is a throw away moment. Laurell, please do something. This is getting out of hand these shadow books you're writing. They need more meat on the frail bones you are serving up. Oh, can we get a real ending next time, not this lets quickly tie every loose end up in a bow of a last chapter. You can do BETTER work. That's way I started reading you to begin with.
Reviewer: richard t
Better than Bullet, But Still Not The Best She Can Do!
July 04, 2011
Like in Skin Trade, Anita leaves St. Louis and the usual cast of characters behind in order to team up with Edward and track down a serial killer who's murdering weretigers. However, this mystery plot is no mystery: Hamilton divulges the identity of the killer in the very first chapter! What we're treated to are lengthy conversations about the misogyny among cops and marshalls and the unfair treatment of shapeshifters who catch the curse while in the line of duty. I don't mind any of the above philosophical veins; I think that their inclusion enriches Anita's world, but we've been over them ad nauseum before and they take up too much page space in "Hit List". When these side topics seem to become the focus of the plot, there's a serious problem. Anita's moral dilemmas are always fascinating, but they aren't enough to entirely carry the story. I noticed that the sexual content has been severely slashed. The amount in previous books was never a real issue for me, but I know that many readers were turned off by the amount of graphic sex included in the later volumes. I think that demographic of readers still won't be satisfied with "Hit List" in spite of it being scaled back drastically. This series has gradually shifted away from the 'supernatural detective' genre into the 'erotic supernatural drama' genre (driven predominantly by character development and relationships), and "Hit List" doesn't quite seem to know where it fits in, as it is neither. The Mother of all Darkness story arch is concluded in "Hit List", but the primordial force of darkness and evil whom both Anita and the reader feared is easily dispatched within the span of a few pages, going out with a whimper rather than a bang. The conclusion, I feel, is the most disappointing moment of the entire Anita Blake series. Readers can skip this volume and resume with next year's release with no problems.
Reviewer: Rachel K
Better than Bullet, But Still Not The Best She Can Do!
July 04, 2011
Like in Skin Trade, Anita leaves St. Louis and the usual cast of characters behind in order to team up with Edward and track down a serial killer who's murdering weretigers. However, this mystery plot is no mystery: Hamilton divulges the identity of the killer in the very first chapter! What we're treated to are lengthy conversations about the misogyny among cops and marshalls and the unfair treatment of shapeshifters who catch the curse while in the line of duty. I don't mind any of the above philosophical veins; I think that their inclusion enriches Anita's world, but we've been over them ad nauseum before and they take up too much page space in "Hit List". When these side topics seem to become the focus of the plot, there's a serious problem. Anita's moral dilemmas are always fascinating, but they aren't enough to entirely carry the story. I noticed that the sexual content has been severely slashed. The amount in previous books was never a real issue for me, but I know that many readers were turned off by the amount of graphic sex included in the later volumes. I think that demographic of readers still won't be satisfied with "Hit List" in spite of it being scaled back drastically. This series has gradually shifted away from the 'supernatural detective' genre into the 'erotic supernatural drama' genre (driven predominantly by character development and relationships), and "Hit List" doesn't quite seem to know where it fits in, as it is neither. The Mother of all Darkness story arch is concluded in "Hit List", but the primordial force of darkness and evil whom both Anita and the reader feared is easily dispatched within the span of a few pages, going out with a whimper rather than a bang. The conclusion, I feel, is the most disappointing moment of the entire Anita Blake series. Readers can skip this volume and resume with next year's release with no problems.
Reviewer: Rachel K
Always enjoyable
June 30, 2011
As always I loved the book, I even preferred this one over some of the others because it didn't rely solely on the sex factor, although I enjoy the relationship Anita has with the Men in her life and I was a little disappointed that they were left out of this book, as another person mentioned in their review , I did find it odd that Anita didn't have any of her men available to feed the arduer, it seems like by now she would know better than to go so far from home for an extended period of time without making this type of arrangement, no matter how good her control has gotten, but regardless, I still loved the book and couldn't put it down, I read it in one night, lol.
Reviewer: Chris
Ravi
June 26, 2011
She's removed 90% of the sex and you can tell that she ATTEMPTED to write an action filled plot, but unfortunately, the lack of sex just highlights the fact that she's no longer possess even the basic writing skills (grammar and plot).
In this novel, we're now told that the Harlequin will appear and kill you if a character says their name. (It wasn't the case when these creatures were first introduced in 'The Harelquin.') Unfortunately, the author apparently forgot she had created this rule and has Anita say the name..... nothing happens. ^_^
None of the characters use their brain. Anita goes out of town and takes none of her men to feed the ardeur. Neither Anita or Edward actually investigate. Edward repeatedly makes bad strategic decisions. The enemy is even defeated in the most laughable method since Peter Pan.
Plus, Anita is now completely unlikable as a character! She threatens to enslave random tigers unless a mother turns over her son for S*Xual services immediately. I think I'm done with this series. >_<
Reviewer: Regina
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