Is this book part of a series and should I read it first?

This is the inaugural novel in the long-running Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series. It serves as the foundational entry for the universe and is the intended starting point for new readers.

Are there any adaptations of this book?

The Anita Blake series has been adapted into a comic book line by Marvel Comics, which includes a visual interpretation of this specific story.

How does the focus of this book compare to later entries in the series?

The early novels in this series are primarily structured as hardboiled detective mysteries centered on supernatural crime-solving. Readers often note that the series shifts its narrative emphasis toward complex interpersonal relationships and character dynamics as it progresses.

Guilty Pleasures

Vampire Fantasy

Pages: 355
Published: 1993
Language: English

Synopsis

Anita Blake works in St. Louis as an animator, which means she raises the dead for paying clients. She is also a licensed vampire hunter. In this version of the city vampires hold legal citizenship, and Anita has no affection for them.

That makes the job offer odd. The city's most powerful vampire wants her to find out who is killing other vampires, and she takes the case.

The search leads Anita through the vampire clubs and into the politics that surround the city's master vampire. Jean-Claude, a vampire centuries old, takes an interest in her and has plans of his own. Edward, a hitman who hunts both vampires and werewolves, turns up on the same ground. Anita has to identify the killer while keeping hold of her own sense of right and wrong.

The book mixes hardboiled detective fiction with horror and urban fantasy, so expect a case-driven plot in a darker supernatural setting. It was published by Ace in 1993 and is the first novel in the Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series.

4 reviews