“Bullet” by Laurell K. Hamilton, Berkley Hardcover, June 1 2010, $33.50, 9780425234334

Plot Summary:
Anita Blake is back in St. Louis and trying to live a normal life-as normal as possible for someone who is a legal vampire executioner and a U. S. Marshal. There are lovers, friends and their children, school programs to attend. In the midst of all the ordinary happiness a vampire from Anita’s past reaches out. She was supposed to be dead, killed in an explosion, but the Mother of All Darkness is the first vampire, their dark creator. It’s hard to kill a god. This dark goddess has reached out to her here-in St. Louis, home of everyone Anita loves most. The Mother of All Darkness has decided she has to act now or never, to control Anita, and all the vampires in America.

The Mother of All Darkness believes that the triumvirate created by master vampire Jean-Claude with Anita and the werewolf Richard Zeeman has enough power for her to regain a body and to immigrate to the New World. But the body she wants to possess is already taken. Anita is about to learn a whole new meaning to sharing her body, one that has nothing to do with the bedroom. And if the Mother of All Darkness can’t succeed in taking over Anita’s body for herself, she means to see that no one else has the use of it, ever again. Even Belle Morte, not always a friend to Anita, has sent word: “Run if you can…”

Review:
Stewie Griffin on Family Guy has a habit of saying, “Do you know what it’s time for? A sexy party!” It’s the most apt way to describe the newest installment in the ongoing Anita Blake series, “Bullet.”

I’ll preface the rest of my review by saying this: don’t expect to see Anita Blake as she was in her glory days in the first few novels of the series like “Guilty Pleasures” and “The Laughing Corpse.” Instead of the detective-type stories that first made the series so good–the fact that there was always a mission and that Anita had to find things out and kill monsters, not fornicate with all of them–we have yet another volume that focuses on the sexual element of the triumvirate created between Blake, the Master of the City of Saint Louis Jean-Claude, and Ulfric werewolf Richard Zeeman.

Those who enjoy the sexually charged scenes and plot will enjoy the novel, as it centers around Anita’s bedroom activities more than anything else. But fans waiting for a return to more plot-driven adventure type plots of the series are in for something of a disappointment.

Some, myself included, are less interested in all the various were-creatures and Anita’s escapades with them, and more in the threat that Marmee Noir, the Mother of All Darkness, is supposed to pose in this book. I didn’t feel the dramatic tension as with previous villains in the series, although Hamilton posits Marmee as a force who has ridiculous amounts of power who is extremely dangerous, especially to Anita.

We quickly learn that this volume focuses more on the were-creatures, and Asher’s disappointment in Micah not wanting him, and then blaming Jean-Claude for not being with him, and then Jean-Claude having to tell Anita that he was scared of her reaction if he went with Asher, and so on ad nauseam.

Anita is, in my view, a far cry from the tough as nails kickass heroine that she used to be. She went from being someone I used to root for in the first few books of the series to someone who now references loving fellatio. Some fans have found this change in Anita quite jarring. Even sadder is the fact that if Ms. Hamilton found a way for Anita to go return to her former self and ditch the ardeur and all it entails, it would require major overhaul to get rid of an element that has embedded itself so deeply into the series that it now defines the books.

What I think would be more interesting despite every novel so far having featured the first person point of view from Anita is if we get a new instalment in the series that’s a prequel–I for one am more interested in seeing Jean-Claude’s past in France, and perhaps a novel from Marmee’s point of view, as well.

In any case, fans who have come to know what to expect from the more recent volumes of the Anita Blake series will like what “Bullet” has to offer. As well, for those interested on the take of other writers on the series, I would suggest the recently published book “Ardeur: 14 Writers on the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Series” published by Smart Pop in April of this year.

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