Anita Blake
Created by Laurell K. Hamilton

Some P.I.'s specialize. Some are bounty hunters. ANITA BLAKE is even more of a specialist. She's a vampire hunter. In an "alternate reality" where the U.S. has declared the undead legal beings, so that vampires, zombies and the like can come out of the closet, so to speak.

But when they get out of hand, Anita steps in. She is the Executioner, taking out the Undead who misbehave.

But that's for pleasure. For profit Blake is employed by Animators Inc in St Louis, where she raises the dead to settle contested wills and such. This unique position between both camps has Blake constantly at odds with the vampire and werewolf communities. Add to the mix her courtesan/lover, Jean-Claude, who runs a vampire strip club. Jean-Claude has a link to Blake that goes beyond love. As one character says to Blake (as an insult) in the opening of the first novel, "You aren't human!".

Quite true, and it is intriguing to see how Hamilton puts the pieces together over the course of the series. And the high sexual content has raised a few eyebrows over the years but Anita's fans (and they are legion) love it..

Naturally, there's been a comic book spin-off.

If the books have been occasionaly marketed as supernatural romances (and judging from the covers of the current crop of paperback reprints, they most definitely are), there's no doubt about which market the comic books are aimed at. Fans boys will lap up the abundant cleavage and over-sized weaponry prominently featured on the covers of the Marvel version of this enduring character.

THE EVIDENCE

• "I'd settled on the Hornady Custom XTP handgun ammo. To be exact, the 9 mm Luger, 147 JHP/XTP, silver-coated of course. There were other hollow point bullets that will expand to a bigger mass, but some of them don't penetrate nearly as far into a body mass...If I emptied 13 of the XTPs into something and it didn't go down, all bets were off. I'd worry about murder charges later, after I survived. Survival first. Try to stay out of jail second. My priorities straight, I headed off..."
  (from Obsidian Butterfly)

UNDER OATH

• "The series is usually classified as sci-fi/fantasy, but they could also be considered pretty hard-boiled private eye stuff. Anita Blake, lives in a present-day, yet alternative, universe to ours, one in which all manner of preternatural beings exist. She has certain powers herself and uses them to solve the murders and mayhem in the plots. Anita's a blast--one of the hardest-boiled dames I've ever read in the genre. She walks the mean streets of her town cracking wise and scattering bullets like raindrops, but has a soft spot for zombies and maybe, just maybe, a vampire and werewolf or two. One word of warning--the covers of the books are awful, the kind that make you embarressed to read them in public. Don't let that deter you, though, from one of the most original series in print."
  (Martha Pennigar on Rara-Avis, August 1999)
  .
• "All I Want For Christmas is... Laurell Hamilton's Anita Blake in a black teddy."
  (Jeremy Morgan from San Antonio, Texas)

NOVELS

• Guilty Pleasures (1993) .. Buy this book
• The Laughing Corpse (1994) .. Buy this book
• Circus of the Damned (1995) .. Buy this book
• The Lunatic Cafe (1996) .. Buy this book
• Bloody Bones (1996) .. Buy this book
• Killing Dance (1997) .. Buy this book
• Burnt Offerings (1998) .. Buy this book
• Blue Moon (1998) .. Buy this book
• Obsidian Butterfly (2000).. Buy this book
• Narcissus in Chains (2001).. Buy this book
• Cerulean Sins (2003).. Buy this book
• Incubus Dreams (2004).. Buy this book
• Micah (2004).. Buy this book
• Danse Macabre (2006).. Buy this book
• The Harlequin (2007).. Buy this book

COMICS

• ANITA BLAKE, VAMPIRE HUNTER: GUILTY PLEASURES:
  (2006-07, Marvel Comics)
  Monthly
  Based on the novel by Laurell K. Hamilton
  Adapted by Stacie M. Rotchie
  Art by Brett Booth
  
  
• ANITA BLAKE, VAMPIRE HUNTER
  (2007, Marvel Comics)
  2-issue mini-series
  Written by Laurell K. Hamilton
  Art by Joe Phillips
  Covers by Brett Booth

Contributed by our resident vampire expert, Keith "Bite Me" Logan.