When this novel landed in my lap, I already had a heap of reading to do and it was utterly selfish of me to hang on to it rather than pass it on to one of our other reviewers. But, I rationalised to myself, we Hamilton's have to stick together, especially those of us who like using our middle initials! And I am more than glad that I did so.

With the original release in 1994, Laurel K. Hamilton predates a lot of the current, burgeoning crop of paranormal/urban fantasy authors. While the protagonist is a vampire hunter, or more correctly, a vampire executioner (at least when there is a court order to do so), this novel is more about zombies and voodoo traditions of Louisiana. However the complex relationship that Anita Blake has with the blood sucking community still comes through.

The Laughing Corpse is much darker and grimmer than a lot of the other urban fantasy/paranormal novels going around. The senses were really engaged when Anita faces deep voodoo magic. I could almost smell the decomposing reanimated corpses. Unless it was just the milk going off again in my fridge (I'm a bachelor folks, we do dumb things like that).

Anita Blake is more than a vampire executioner, she is also an animator – she is able to raise the dead and has a natural affinity to voodoo. In this, only the second of the series, she is still yet to understand the full extent of her potential or the darker possibilities although this starts to become apparent in the climax.

I know virtually nothing about voodoo apart from a quick read of Wikipedia, but this newb was given a real sense of believability of verisimilitude in research and world building which helped give the novel real compulsion while reading.

Another point where LKH has really excelled is with the portrayal of her protagonists. There is a real malevolence about them that is quite chilling–what I like to think of as the Hannibal Lecter factor.

The end result for me was an impressive novel that became compulsive reading.

Ross C. Hamilton