When a vampire serial killer sends Anita Blake a grisly souvenir from Las Vegas, she has to warn Sin City as local authorities what dealing with. Only its worse than she thought. Ten officers and one executioner have been slain paranormal style. Anita heads to Vegas, where shes joined by three other federal marshals, including the ruthless Edward. It’s a good thing he always has her back, because when she gets close to the bodies, Anita senses a tiger too strongly to ignore it. The weretigers are very powerful in Las Vegas, which means the odds of her rubbing someone important the wrong way just got a lot higher.

Book 17 (wow) in the Anita Blake series truly doesn’t disappoint. Most noticeable is Ms. Hamilton’s return to the meat of her earlier stories without as much erotica, with the first sex scene on page 378. Also noticiable is the lack of any of her key characters from earlier books in the series and few interactions with them when they do appear.

I was pleasantly surprised by Skin Trade, it was such a great novel with such good flow it was hard to put it down. The lack of Anita’s weird sexual habits was a bonus to those of us who weren’t that into it. Just this past August at a Meet & Greet for Sherrilyn Kenyon, I heard some woman discussing Ms Hamilton’s work and how they thought the series had become way to smutty. Well ladies, this books for us. It’s a throw back to the early Anita years, with a story line that is close to a Patricia Cornwell story with a Paranormal twist! One of the best books in the series!

5/5