This book epitomizes all that went wrong with this series. It starts tantalizingly like the early books, seeming like it might be another noir-like supernatural mystery. And there were several developments that would be enough for several books, which might be cool if they were followed up in either the book or the series. But I don't think Hamilton had any clue any longer (if she ever had) about where she wanted to take this series. Many people, including me, complain about the focus on sex. In this 750-page book, if you took away the chapters-long sex scenes, you'd have a novella. I'm not against sex. I am against badly written sex that turns out to be filler. And by this point I think the sex isn't just cheesy and pointless. It's distraction. It's a symptom of a deeper problem, that Hamilton will not or cannot develop her characters further. In the earlier books we were teased about where the triumvirate of Jean-Claude/Anita/Richard might lead. Would Anita gain another mark and lose her humanity? How would Richard and Jean-Claude come to terms with each other? Even with my objections to Narcissus in Chains, there was at least potential for how things might develop with the pard. But all that is lost as Anita adds more and more men to her harem, rather than develop the relationships she has. The book is a mess. And not all the sex in the world can hide that.
