Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter #03 - Circus of the Damned

Laurell K. Hamilton

For the series over view and the other Anita Blake Vampire Hunter reviews click the following link. Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter

The third Anita Blake novel is where things start to get interesting, Jean Claude is still trying to win Anita over and convince her to become his human servant, and a mega powerful vampire comes to town to try and take her by force.

For those that haven't read any of the books yet a quick rundown on this concept is required. A human servant is a bit like a familiar; they protect vampires during daylight hours and basically become immortal in their own right. A servant who is a powerful psychic, witch, warlock, necromancer, voodun, or whatever, will both dramatically increase in power himself or herself and make the vampire much more powerful.

A series of four "Marks" are required for one to become a full human servant, each one will gradually tie the Vampire and the servant together giving more power to each party. If the Vampire dies usually the servant will die too due to the shock, but not always.

At this Point in the ongoing story Anita has two of Jean Claude's marks from memory, she is now much tougher and is resistant to vampire mind powers.

This novel is good because it gives us an insight into the vampire hierarchy, going into details about the Vampire Council and how all their politics work. It also gives more insight into the legislation regarding animating the dead to settle legal disputes.

The title for this book comes from the name of yet another establishment owned by Jean Claude. The circus of the damned is a kind of after dark spooky theme park where it is Halloween every night. Jean Claude also lives under it, it is his headquarters from where he runs the undead affairs of the city.

In this book there is a big battle for the city (and Anita), put on as a kind of show at the circus. Our favorite sociopath Edward puts in an appearance at the battle (dressed as death), to help out Anita, but mainly because it is a good chance to kill a lot of monsters.

I would also like to mention that I really like the cover on this one, the red haze looks damn cool.