("Cerulean Sins")

[fiefoe]

Once upon a time Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series was just about a sassy vampire hunter with boyfriend trouble, but over the years, it has decidedly morphed into something Young Adult unfriendly. The bloated page count, a good indication of the work of a febrile, overblown imagination, is the least of the reasons. (I should've known better, but the copy at the library looked pristine.)

The one-liners are still there, ("Once I came to the club to kill vampires. Now I use their employee parking spot. How the mighty has fallen." "The cardinal girl's rule: never date anyone prettier than you."), but in between them one has to wade through long discursions of vampire politics, werepeople power structure and necromancer etiquette. There's always someone Anita needs to save, and through a web of metaphysical wrinkles, the only way to go about it is always having sex with more people, and her morals always put up a good fight. It's about the most tedious moral quandary imaginable. Amazon's "erotically fraught" comment is right on the mark.

To her credit, Anita hasn't referred to herself as a socialpath so far in this book. It is also good to know that when dressed in silk, it takes practise not to slip off satin sheets.

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Seen on a bumper sticker: GOD ANSWERS TO KNEE-MAIL:)