Even vampires get ill. In the sixth outing of Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake, The Killing Dance, Anita's occasional boyfriend Jean-Claude, vampire Master of St. Louis, is asked to help another Master who is rotting where he stands. Anita's necromantic powers may be enough to help Sabin, in conjunction with those of Jean-Claude and of Richard, the werewolf whom she is thinking of marrying. Anita, though, has problems of her own--there is a contract out on her life and the politics of the city's were-beings are even more complicated than those of its vampires. Richard has refused to take leadership of the city's werewolf pack, because he refuses to kill its current Alpha; just by existing and having defeated them in combat, he is a threat to the authority of Max and Raina, the wolves' current rulers. And it makes things worse that he is trusted by the wererats, say, and the various independent were-creatures.
Laurell K Hamilton's background in animal ethnology adds a lot to the mix in this book; Anita has to do some long hard thinking about what it means to be in love with a man who changes to wolf. --Roz Kaveney
No comments:
Post a Comment