Laurell K. Hamilton

When a vampire serial killer sends Anita Blake a grisly souvenir from Las Vegas, she has to warn Sin City's local authorities what they're dealing with. Only it's worse than she thought. Police officers and one executioner have been slain – paranormal-style.

When Anita Blake meets with prospective client Tony Bennington, who is desperate to have her reanimate his recently deceased wife, she is full of sympathy for his loss. Anita knows something about love, and she knows everything there is to know about loss.

You don't volunteer for slugfests with vampires. It shortens your 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 name is Anita Blake.

'You can't trust anyone who sleeps with the monsters.' That's what I've always said. That's what I've always believed. But now I'm the one sharing a bed with the Master Vampire of the City.

You never forget your ex-fiance. And when the call came at three in the morning, I thought for a moment it was him. It wasn't. It was his brother. And it wasn't good news.

The first hit man came after me at home, which should be against the rules. Then there was a second, and a third. Word on the street is that Anita Blake, preternatural expert and vampire killer extraordinaire, is worth half a million dollars. Dead, not alive.

Edward is a hit man. He specialises in monsters. Vampires, shape-shifters, anything and everything. There are people like me, Anita Blake, who do it legally, but Edward doesn't sweat the legalities or, hell, the ethics. He is an equal opportunity killer.

Most women complain that there are no single straight men left. I'd just like to meet one that's human.

Anita Blake is small, dark and dangerous. Her turf is the city of St Louis. Her job – reanimating the dead and killing the undead who take things too far.

But instead Anita Blake, preternatural expert and feared executioner, is less interested in vampire politics than in the ancient, ordinary dread that women down the ages have experienced: am I pregnant? And, if so, is the father a vampire, a werewolf or someone else entirely.

Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter for Animators, Inc., is offered a cool mil to raise a 283-year-old corpse. But she knows that the older the zombie, the bigger the death needed to raise it. Only a human sacrifice is 'big' enough to raise this old soul – and Anita’s no murderer.

A vampire serial killer who preys on strippers is on the loose. Called in to consult on the case, Anita fears her judgment may be clouded by a conflict of interest. For she is, after all, the consort of Jean-Claude, the ever-intoxicating Master Vampire of the City. Surrounded by suspicion,...

Jason is a werewolf. He's one of my best friends and sometimes a lover. And right now he needs me, Anita Blake – not to be a vampire hunter, or a Federal Marshall, or a necromancer, but because his father is dying.

I am Meredith Gentry, princess and heir apparent to the throne in the realm of faerie, onetime private investigator in the mortal world. To be crowned queen, I must first continue the royal bloodline and give birth to an heir of my own. If I fail, my aunt, Queen Andais, will be free to do what...

When the monsters are involved, it's never just one dead body. One way or another, the dead multiply. First, there were the dead in the graveyard, 200 years dead. I'd been hired to raise them to settle a dispute over who owned the land they were buried in. Then there were the three dead teenagers.

It seems the power that connects me, Anita Blake, with Jean-Claude Vampire Master of the City and Richard, leader of the werewolves, is attracting very unwelcome attention – from creatures so feared no vampire will willingly speak their name.

I am back in St Louis and trying to live a normal life – as normal as possible for someone who is a legal vampire-executioner and a US Marshal. I have my lovers, my friends and their children, school programs to attend...

I'm Anita Blake and I kill monsters. The last thing I want to think about though when I get home after a night out is work. But someone has abducted a wereleopard from the Narcissus in Chains club.

There are lots of reasons to raise the dead – some private, some public. In this case, the feds have a witness who died before he could speak on the record. They want him raised so his testimony can be taken. Micah is with me. Micah, head of the St Louis wereleopard pard. King to my Queen.

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.