Book Review: The Circus of the Damned. Book Three of the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series by Laurell K. Hamilton

in #nsfw6 years ago

The Circus of the Damned

We meet Anita in this book having an early morning coffee whilst biting her tongue because her boss has booked her an appointment for interview with the leader and side kick of a right-wing nut job group called 'Humans First' that don't just oppose vampire politically but they also break the law to kill vampires whenever possible. They want to pay Anita good money for the name and resting place of the Master of the City (ie. head honcho vampire of St. Louise). Anita and maybe a few handfuls of people know that the Master of the City is Jean Claude. Others who don't know believe Jean Claude is a two bit master and stripper.

She practically laughs at them. Tells them she doesn't know the resting place and that even though they are right wing nut jobs, that she doesn't feed humans to the monsters. They ask if they had a better plan on how to kill the Master, would she go for it then? She actually pauses to think and gives them an honest maybe before asking them to politely fuck off.

Later in the day she gets a call from Sergeant Dolph, there's a body. Dead with 5 different vampire bites on it. Classic sign of a Master and coven on a group hunt. As far as Anita knows, there are only 2 master vampires in St Louise. Malcolm, the head of the Church of Eternal Life who is a Left Wing nut job and Jean Claude who as far as Anita remembers, is trying to encourage the mainstreaming of Vampires as it's making him money hand over fist and to leave a corpse out in the open goes against all his hard work.

Dolph goes to talk to Malcolm, Anita to talk to Jean-Claude. She meets him at the circus of the damned and Jean Claude tries to play mind games with her except his show where a snake as big as a school bus breaks loose from control and begins to eat the entertainers and Anita being Anita tries taking it on herself. Anita gets bashed all to hell, Jean-Claude saves the day and kills the snake by drawing power from Anita in a sort of mind meld, Anita freaks the fuck out and threatens to kill Jean-Claude for the upteenth time but hey she got a sweet date out of it. Richard Zeeman, junior high school science teacher by day, secret Werewolf by night. He plans to take her caving.

That is until she's forced to go caving without him. Anita meets an ancient vampire called Mr. Oliver, as in somewhere between homo-erectus and cro-magnon level of ancient. He ALSO happens to want the name and location of the Master of the City. With him is a companion called Melanie who is a Lamia, thought to be extinct some 200 years ago.

Melanie takes a dislike of Anita and cons/kidnaps Anita and takes her into a cave to converted or killed. There is another ancient vampire there with Melanie, Alejandro an ancient Aztec vampire who does something never thought possible. He gives Anita the first two marks despite already having the marks from Jean-Claude. Anita gets away and gets home safe but not before getting bitten. The double up of the two marks from two masters keeps the poisons at bay for a long time but Richard comes for his date and finds Anita less than ok.

He knows she would rather die than be a lycanthrope so he can't heal her that way. The hospitals are unlikely to have Lamia antivenom, so Richard takes her to Jean-Claude, and whilst she's unconscious he gives her the third mark. It saves her life, she doesn't care. She gets home and calls Mr. Oliver and tells him exactly who the Master of the city is and where to find him. No more than a few hours later she is made to regret her decision. Turns out Mr. Oliver intends to make every last vampire in the city attack humans in order to encourage the laws on Vampires being legal persons to be repealed. He believes that only the smartest and strongest vampires should live, and having vampires being legal to hunt means that only the smart and strong survive. Anita agreed with him but didn't know the cost of getting that to happen. She warns Jean-Claude but a 200 year old vampire against a vampire that could be a million or more years old. The odds of survival are slim, and if they do win, at what cost?

Thoughts


This is the story of what does it take for Anita to lose what little cool she does have. It questions her loyalties and if she might god forbid be a little in love with Jean-Claude. If she might be racist or speciesist. What are her current levels of 'acceptable' when it comes to loyalties, friends and lovers and what it takes for her to throw it all out the window.

I give this book 7.7/10, it's a bit more like book one where it's just a fun read. There's a very minimal amount of erotica in it, there is nakedness and nudity but no sex just yet. Anita is still her good little catholic girl prude who is not comfortable seeing nipples let alone anything else.


With this series I apologise for the lack of cat photos, I only own e-book versions of this so screen shots and stuff on pixabay will have to suffice. Due to this series being quite long I apologise but there WILL be spoilers.

To better understand the world of Anita Blake, read my world synopsis here

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Great job with the reviews (love the pics as well) -a million years old vamp, gulp!

Hey when your free, maybe you could do a review for my amateur Steemit book (The Wizards betrayal)...even though it won't be finished for sometime

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