In The Laughing Corpse, Anita Blake, vampire hunter and animator, is hired by the wealthy and powerful Nikolaos to solve a series of grisly murders involving zombies. However, she discovers that the killer is connected to a powerful voodoo priestess who needs to sacrifice an innocent to gain immortality. Anita meets Jean-Claude, a powerful vampire who also wants to stop the priestess. As they work together to uncover the truth, Anita becomes embroiled in a dangerous world of black magic, human sacrifice, and ancient powers. As the stakes rise, Anita must navigate a treacherous web of alliances and enemies while battling her own conflicted emotions towards Jean-Claude. In the end, she must risk everything to stop the voodoo priestess and save innocent lives.
The Laughing Corpse / Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, Book 2, Audiobook Online By: Laurell K. Hamilton
The Laughing Corpse is Anita Blake’s second novel, which follows a young vampire hunter and animator in her work for Animators, Inc, who bring the dead back to life with objects. sacrifice and a fee.
Unfortunately, this time the job they were given was to resurrect a long dead corpse, which required human sacrifice. This Anita wouldn’t do, but the client was very insistent and very dangerous. Another animator also made something obscene, too fast for a normal zombie and horrible deaths started happening.
Anita is brought in by the police as an expert, but this is unlike anything she’s ever seen before, and Anita must unravel who is capable of awakening this killer to stop it from killing again.
Featuring a strong female lead who for some reason loves stuffed penguins, this is an action-packed, often bloody, alternative modern world where people can hire animators. to take care of those who have just passed away. At just 23 years old, Anita looks at least ten years older with a slightly tired tone of her world, and the pressure quickly begins to mount as she has to deal with a rogue and powerful enough killer. To raise it, a voodoo priestess sends her killer zombies at night, and the city’s master vampire, Jean-Claude, the vampire-style is really very French and very stubborn.
This is a more action-packed style of writing than Hamilton’s other series, the Merry Gentry novels, which stare less into the deep eyes of the sidhe lords and examine more of the mutilated corpses and attacked by the undead. There’s a lot of cheesy jokes here and even if the villains are animated, especially vampire Jean-Claude is pretty ridiculous, it’s still hilarious and a quick read.
Kimberly Alexis has done an excellent job of portraying all of my favorite characters. Just like the previous book, she doesn’t need additional sound effects. I’m sure they’re meant to enhance her performance but all it does is intrude on her performance and take you out of the story.
This is the first time I’ve heard Anita Blake’s books on Audible, but I’ve read the series 5 times. Laurell is one of my favorite authors, and Anita Blake’s books have never let me down until now. The music in the audiobook distracts me from the story so much that I leave it completely each time. I don’t know if there’s a way to remove it, but I won’t listen to it again as long as it’s there.
