2009: #68 – Skin Trade (Laurell K. Hamilton)

Book #68 was Skin Trade, the 17th book in Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake series.  The back of the book reads:

When a vampire serial killer sends Anita Blake a grisly souvenir from Las Vegas, she has to warn Sin City’s local authorities what they’re dealing with. Only it’s worse than she thought. Ten officers and one executioner have been slain—paranormal style. Anita heads to Vegas, where’s she’s joined by three other federal marshals, including the ruthless Edward. It’s a good thing he always has her back, because when she gets close to the bodies, Anita senses “tiger” too strongly to ignore it. The weretigers are very powerful in Las Vegas, which means the odds of her rubbing someone important the wrong way just got a lot higher.

I had such high hopes for this book! Anita was back to being an executioner! She’s on the road, so her stable of men will be smaller! Maybe there will be less of the metaphysical stuff!

And then I was so, so disappointed. If there was ever a book in need of an editor with a sharp red pen, it was this one.

The worst part of the book?  The talking, talking, and more talking. Everyone had to discuss every little freakin’ thing, at the most inopportune times, and ad nauseum. How many times do we need to revisit the “other people think Anita’s a slut cuz she has so many boyfriends” point? Or the “Olaf the serial killer/U.S. Marshall wants Anita and he makes her really uncomfortable” point? And in the middle of a supposedly fast-paced search for a serial killer?  There is just a ridiculous amount of discussion and pissing contests, for lack of a better term.  The sex is toned down quite a bit in this one, with the wildest scene actually only alluded to, but even that wasn’t enough to save this book.  I did enjoy the final confrontation, but it should have been about 200 pages sooner than it was. I’ve stuck through this series for 17 books, but I’m not sure I’ll bother with #18.

Audiobook length: 18hrs 52min | Approximate word count: 203,453

2008: Dead Witness (Joylene Nowell Butler)
2007: Plum Island (Nelson DeMille)
2006: Letters From An Age of Reason (Nora Hague)
2005: Therapy (Jonathan Kellerman)

Used in these Challenges: 100+ Reading Challenge 2009;