Review of Laurell K. Hamilton’s Crimson Death
Review for Crimson Death by Laurell K. Hamilton
What is It? Crimson Death, a novel by Laurell K. Hamilton, a 708 page plain text novel with no interior illustrations. It is, by my count, the 25th book in Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series. The genre is probably paranormal romance with elements of urban fantasy and supernatural horror.
There are two main plot threads, which intertwine: Anita’s vampire servant, Damien, is experiencing complications of his vampiric condition, such as not dying at dawn, having terrible daytime nightmares, and sweating profuse amounts of blood. It’s suspected that the vampire that made Damien, whose name is rarely mentioned directly, is inflicting this trouble on him from a distance. Damien’s maker is the oldest and most powerful vampire in Ireland.
The other element is rampant blatant vampire attacks in Ireland. Ireland previously believed it had no vampires due to their rarity and subtlety.
So Anita, Damien, and a portion of Anita’s harem and body guards go to Ireland to deal with the situation.
What’s Good About It? It was for me, quite literally, a page turner: any time I sat down and started reading it, I forgot about time constraints and bodily needs like sleep and food; I just wanted to keep reading.
What’s Not so Good About It? The plot structure and pacing is weird. It takes more than half the book for Anita to get to Ireland. There are long diversions into dialogue about the magical metaphysics of Anita’s abilities as a Necromancer and the triumvirates of power she is bound into; also sex scenes. The final confrontation with the big bad is the shortest portion of the book.
What The…?Moments: I missed a few books in this series. When I had last checked in, Anita had developed a supernatural hunger for sex called the Ardeur and had started accumulating a harem of men to help her deal with it, and she had a number of bisexual men in her life, but Anita herself was strictly a straight woman. In this book, I find out that Anita is now also bisexual. I have no objection, it was just a surprise.
Who Should Get It? If you read the previous 24, there’s no good reason to stop. This book is not a good jumping on point for new readers. If you really like paranormal romance genre books, this will scratch that itch, but I’d recommend starting the series with an earlier book.
