Review: The Lunatic Cafe by Laurell K. Hamilton

My Rating: E, P, B

Published: 1996
Publisher: Orbit

Author's Website: laurellkhamilton.org

Purchase @ Amazon.co.uk Amazon.com

‘You don’t volunteer for slugfests with vampires. IT shortens you life expectancy.’

And you don’t fall in love with a werewolf. It interferes with your work. Especially when you’re a preternatural expert, like me. My business brings me up close and personal with all shapes and sizes of monsters. And not all of them want to kill me.

Take, for instance, the local pack of lycanthropes – they’re werewolves to you. A number of them are missing and they’ve come to me for help. Maybe because I’m dating the leader of the pack. I’ve survives a lot – from jealous vampires to killer zombies – but this love thing may kill me yet.

The Lunatic Café is the fourth novel in the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series by Laurell K. Hamilton. Once again this series doesn’t disappoint, we have a glorious love triangle going on for our heroine Anita Blake, a murder mystery and some crazy cops.

Well, what can I say? This book did not disappoint me at all. I enjoyed every minute of reading this book. We meet the local werewolf pack in this story and they are as vicious as they are made out to be, beasts, not human. Well some of them are, there are some nice ones, like Richard. Anita is once again left fighting for her life, and it’s in quite a precarious situation but then it would have to be, it’s Anita.

Anita has a bit of a challenging time in this book. She has two men vying for her love and attention but they are both monsters, going by her definition. Who will she choose? Anita has a murder mystery to help solve with the preternatural squad as well as chastise her boss constantly about the type of clients he is sending her. They are not her usual cases and she refuses to take any more, she’s an animator and vampire executioner not a private investigator. Bert however just sees the dollar signs and says yes.

Edward makes a reappearance in this book which I am happy about. He’s such an intriguing character. There’s a hidden depth underneath that homicidal exterior. What I want to know is what makes Edward tick? We know he kills for money and for the challenge of things, but what makes him mad, what does he do when he’s not with Anita or out killing his targets? I hope we get to find out. I don’t think anything will happen between him and Anita, they are just sort of friends. When he isn’t thinking about torturing or killing her if she doesn’t give him the information he wants.

Richard, this is a guy I could grow to like. I liked him in the first book for a while until I remembered he was first introduced as a naked guy having some kind of sexual relations with another werewolf. He was quite comfortable in this situation which I thought was rather odd. Anyway, in this book, Anita and he are still dating but the strain is showing. Richard tries to be overprotective a bit too much for Anita, but then she is being slightly hypocritical. Will their relationship last?

This leaves Jean Claude. He’s our ultimate bad guy, but he is so charming about it. Jean Claude is still trying to win Anita’s affection by being underhanded. But then what do you expect from a master vampire? I don’t know what else to say about him except that he is a viable suitor for Anita, but I’m not sure he will be the one she ends up with. Then again, I could be wrong. I can’t wait to find out as I read the series.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and will continue to read and review the series. I would recommend this book/series to anyone who enjoys a more in depth plot line that involves all shapes and sizes of the supernatural.

Disclaimer: I do not own this book, I borrowed it from my local library. I have not been paid to review this book and everything I have said is of my own honest opinion.