Obsidian Butterfly (An Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, Book 9)

Obsidian Butterfly - Laurell K. Hamilton Among those who have followed the Anita Blake books, Obsidian Butterfly stands along the great divide. This is the last book where Anita really is a Vampire Hunter, and uses her brains (and guns) rather than... another part of her anatomy to solve her problems. For me the series doesn't just drop in quality, it falls into an abyss after this book and it becomes a completely different series, with an entirely different focus in characters and themes. So for me this is the last good book. For some it's their favorite. In this book Anita works with Edward her fellow US Marshal--a sociopath--to investigate a series of supernatural attacks. Especially in this book, Edward reminds me of Dexter. Here he shows another side as a family man, as someone who does have a side that wants something normal. Ordinarily though he's one scary son-of-a-bitch. The thing is though, there's a lot of Edward in Anita. This book examines that, and I think that's why some name this as their favorite book. When we first meet Anita in Guilty Pleasures she was a woman who drew several moral bright lines, despite some impulsiveness and often disregard for rules. Vampires and weres were monsters to her she put down without remorse, now she's in love with--well, one of each. So up to this book, the theme of the books were, who's the monster? And the thing is in this book, the ordinary humans like Edward and Olaf (a creepy sociopath that makes Edward seem warm and normal) are definitely the scariest. Maybe. Because of all the Anita Blake books, and I read until book 18, Flirt, until giving up on them, this is the one with the big bad I remembered the best. So I have to give props to that. That said, not even fans of Anita Blake universally laud this book. For a friend of mine, this was the last Anita Blake book she could stand. There's a pretty graphic scene in this book involving the molestation of a child. For my friend that finally crossed the line. "That woman is sick." And she meant Hamilton, not the baddie. That disturbed me. Goodness knows this book doesn't represent too bright a line from what was to come. Too many times in the earlier books--and here--Anita is threatened with rape, and characters around her victimized. There have always been some icky, at times gruesome aspects to this series. But this was the last one that really had a story and where Anita was at all recognizable. The book could have ended, après moi, le déluge.