'People don't like dealing with people who raise the dead. Don't ask me why, but we make them nervous.' There's something about Leo Harlan that I don't like. He's asked me to reanimate his long-dead ancestor, and it seems like a perfectly ordinary case for someone like me: Anita Blake, preternatural expert, vampire hunter and raiser of the dead. So I agree - sometimes you deal with the devil not because you want to, but because if you don't, someone else will. But what he hasn't told me is that the corpse may hold the secret to an ancient crime that not everyone wants to be remembered.

'People don't like dealing with people who raise the dead. Don't ask me why, but we make them nervous.' There's something about Leo Harlan that I don't like. He's asked me to reanimate his long-dead ancestor, and it seems like a perfectly ordinary case for someone like me: Anita Blake, preternatural expert, vampire hunter and raiser of the dead. So I agree - sometimes you deal with the devil not because you want to, but because if you don't, someone else will. But what he hasn't told me is that the corpse may hold the secret to an ancient crime that not everyone wants to be remembered.

In this novel in the #1 New York Times bestselling series, vampire hunter Anita Blake learns what it's like to be at the new end of a centuries-old bloodline—and just how far she’ll let herself get pushed around. Once a sworn enemy of all monsters, Anita is now the human consort of both Jean-Claude, the Master Vampire, and Micah, the leopard shapeshifter. Not quite as human as she once was, she is consumed by both their hungers—desires that must be sated time and time again. And when a centuries-old vampire targets Jean-Claude and his clan, Anita finds herself tested as never before—needing all the dark forces her passion can muster to save the ones she loves the most...

A collection of the first five novels in Laurell K. Hamilton's New York Times bestselling Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series. • Guilty Pleasures • The Laughing Corpse • Circus of the Damned • The Lunatic Cafe • Bloody Bones

For the first time in trade paperback: the fifth novel in the #1 New York Times bestselling series from Laurell K. Hamilton. When Branson, Missouri, is hit with a death wave 'four unsolved murders' it doesn't take an expert to realize that all is not well. But luckily for the locals, Anita Blake is an expert in the kinds of preternatural goings-on that have everyone spooked. And she's got an 'in' with the creature that can make sense of the slayings-the sexy master vampire known as Jean-Claude.

When a powerful centuries-old vampire hits Anita Blake's town, a battle of the undead ensues.

When vampire hunter Anita Blake agrees to do a favor for Jason, her werewolf lover, she becomes caught up in the middle of a scandal that makes her a pawn in an ancient vampire queen's rise to power.