In the latest installment of Anita Blake series the story starts out with a meeting between Anita and Malcolm, the head of the vampire church.  He tells Anita that a powerful vampire with unknown intentions has come to town.  Malcolm is concerned about the safety of his church goers and hints that this mysterious vampire could be a problem for Anita and Jean-Claude as well.   Soon after their meeting Anita receives a white mask.  She then contacts Jean-Claude and he confirms to her that The Harlequin, the vampire policing agents, are in town and observing them for a possible final judgment that could mean their deaths.  It soon becomes clear that the Harlequin are in town to do more than watch as Anita and her crew start suffering from metaphysical attacks meant to manipulate their behavior.  Jean-Claude tells Anita that the Harlequin are breaking their own rules of observance only by their metaphysical interference.  Anita must figure out why the Harlequin are breaking centuries old rules and which powerful vamps are behind sending in the Harlequin for their obvious nefarious intentions. Anita calls in Edward for backup to help her face down the Harlequin who have come to destroy everyone that Anita loves.

First I'll start of with what I liked about the book.  The book did have a better plot line than the previous 4-5 books.  There is a clearly defined menace that Anita must deal with. The story is well paced and drew me very strongly into Anita's unique world.  There is much less sex in the book. I think it took until about page 140 before Anita had her first sex scene.  I am much more satisfied with the book than the last few Blake installments but the book is not a return to the Anita of the early books.  So now I'll get into what I disliked about the book.  Hamilton keeps adding new characters to an already bloated cast.  I think the stories would flow much better if Hamilton got the characters back to a small core group and focused on them.  Right now she has too many characters to keep track of and really interesting characters like Asher end up being under used. 

The sex scenes in this book a less than sensational.  They are devoid of any feeling which makes them uninteresting.  Hamilton needs to give Anita an actual love scene where she is having sex with someone because she is passionate for them.  That would be hot.   Anita needs to have sex be about something other than just necessity to truely make it interesting again.

Anita also needs some strong male leads to play against in this series.  Richard and Jean-Claude used to be strong characters but now they are just pale shadows of their former selves.  All Richard can do is whine about how he wants Anita but can't have her and Jean-Claude can't seem to do anything unless he gets powered up by Anita first.  Edward is back in this story but even his character has been watered down and he is reduced to just relating his personal family issues with Anita.  A formerly kick butt character gets very little butt to kick in this book. 

I know I have listed more things I disliked about this book than I liked but I actually didn't mind the story too much.  The plot line was interesting for me despite the problems and I hope that Hamilton can further focus future storylines in her Anita Blake books.  For those hoping that this book is a return to pre-arduer Anita you will be disappointed.  I don't think we'll ever get that Anita back.  Hopefully we'll get some middle ground met for an Anita so that most people can get into the character again.  Even though this book can't compare to the early Anita Blake series I'm not ready yet to give up on Anita's world yet.  I still find it interesting enough to want to visit once a year when a new book is released.  I still remain tentatively optimistic that the series will continue to be an intriguing read.