The Harlequin (Anita Blake Vampire Hunter Series) [Audiobook, Unabridged] [Audio Cassette]

Laurell K. Hamilton (Author), Cynthia Holloway (Reader)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 5, 2007 | Series: Anita Blake Vampire Hunter Series (Book 15)

Malcolm, head of the vampire Church of Eternal Life, is no particular friend to Anita Blake. So when he shows up in her office, to ask for her help against creatures so feared that no vampire will willingly speak their name, Anita is surprised. But she believes him. Malcolm may not be a Master of the City, but he’s an old and powerful vampire, a leader of men, and he does not easily ask for help - especially from Anita and Jean-Claude, whose power Malcolm considers corrupt. That was the first warning of The Harlequin. The second warning is presented like a gift, left where she’d be sure to find it, with “Anita” printed on the box. Inside, carefully wrapped in folds of pristine tissue paper, is a white mask, utterly plain. The fact that it’s white, Jean-Claude tells her, is the good news. White means they are only being watched. The flow of power that connects Anita Blake with Jean-Claude, vampire Master of the City, and with Richard, Ulfric of the werewolves, has been growing and changing, increasing exponentially. Their power seems to have attracted attention, and it’s a kind of attention no one would desire. Jean-Claude and Richard need to be strong allies now. Nathaniel and Micah need to give all their love and aid. And Anita will need to call on Edward, whose utterly human ruthlessness in her defense makes him the right man for the job. Anita Blake has the authority to pass judgment on vampires. The Harlequin have the authority to pass judgment on her. It is forbidden to speak of The Harlequin unless you’ve been contacted. And to be contacted by The Harlequin is to be under sentence of death.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

At the start of bestseller Hamilton's solid 15th adventure to star vampire hunter Anita Blake, Malcolm, the priggish head of the Church of the Eternal Life (the vampire church), is so desperate for help in dealing with the Harlequin, a troop of vampire enforcers and spies so feared vampires are forbidden to speak its name, he turns to those he considers sinful and corrupt—Anita and her sweetie, Jean-Claude, St. Louis's Master of the City. The Harlequin may have targeted Anita and the powerful triumvirate she has forged with Jean-Claude and Richard Zeeman (aka Ulfric of the werewolves). According to the rules, the Harlequin must make contact through delivery of a mask—white to indicate they are watching, red for pain, black for death. Anita receives a white mask, but the members of the Harlequin aren't playing by the rules. Shorter and more tightly structured than the previous entry in the series, Danse Macabre (2006), Hamilton's latest should prove more satisfying to longtime fans with its straightforward supernatural politics and steamy (but not extreme) sex.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

'Death and gore galore ... Hamilton writes with ease and vigour ... Great fun' SHIVERS 'I was enthralled - a departure from the usual type of vampire tale which will have a wide appeal to any reader hunting for both chills and fun' Andre Norton 'The fights are fast and furious, with guns roaring, claws rending and wisecracks by the dozen.' OUTLAND --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Audio Cassette
• Publisher: Brilliance Audio Unabridged (June 5, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1596000449
• ISBN-13: 978-1596000445
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (281 customer reviews)

More About the Author

Laurell K. Hamilton is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of two series that mix mystery, fantasy, magic, horror and romance. Her Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter novels from Berkley Books began with GUILTY PLEASURES (now a hugely successful graphic novel from Marvel - the first sexy paranormal comic ever!) and continues with the SKIN TRADE, number seventeen in the series, in which Anita's complex personal and professional relationships with a master vampire and an alpha werewolf continue to evolve. There are now more than 6 million copies of Anita in print worldwide, in 16 languages. Hamilton's Ballantine series features Fey princess and private investigator, Merry Gentry and there are now six novels exceeding one million copies in print. Divine Misdemeanors, the eighth in the series will debut Octobe 29, 2009. She lives in St. Louis County Missouri with her husband Jonathon Green, daughter, one pug dog and one boxer/pug dog.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Continuing the downward spiral, October 17, 2007

By 

Lefty Frizzell "Lefty" (Norfolk, VA (right now)) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Harlequin (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, Book 15) (Hardcover)

I'm going to make this quick. While this book is a little bit better than the last two or three, it's still almost complete drivel. The series has degenerated into a formula. Sex, argue, fight, sex, fight, argue, degrade Richard, sex, argue, argue, argue. And, the spelling errors, lack of continuity, and lack of attention to prior detail negated any possibility of salvation of the characters.

This series is doomed. Save your money. Anita died around the mid part of Book Eight. Todays Anita is not the heroine we loved and respected. And, if I wanted to read good porn, I would buy it. Titillation is one thing. Pointless porn is another. And this is BAD pointless porn being read by a Tijuana hooker. The whole fiasco makes my hair hurt.

107 of 118 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars My time and money are too valuable..., June 20, 2007

By 

C. Davis (Louisiana) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Harlequin (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, Book 15) (Hardcover)

I began reading The Harlequin with much trepidation. I am one of the original fans of the series who, I admit, has not been pleased with the latest offerings.
The first hundred pages or so were not that bad and had me thinking that maybe there was some hope for our heroine and the author. Alas, it just wasn't meant to be. The action in the book was limited to a few scenes, only a couple of which Anita actually participated in and frankly they weren't that exciting.
The sex scenes themselves were written better than they have been in the previous books, but they were pointless to the storyline and often had me thinking "what the heck was THAT all about?". And once the characters let the genie out of the bottle by having sex that was all the book rotated around; not necesarrily actually having sex, but talking about sex, thinking about sex, arguing about sex, having sex again... you get the picture.

The Harlequin (as the bad guys) could have been scary and just weren't, especially at this weird moment at the end when everyone stood around talking about their "feelings" while the bad guys just stood around and twiddled their thumbs. Of course, Anita used her metaphysical mojo and miraculously vanquished them just in the nick of time.

I also found myself suffering from deja vu. Every chapter had at least one character repeating some cliched phrase from previous books over again. There were some conversations that I swear were lifted straight from the other novels. Maybe this is so new readers can learn the characters but it was pretty annoying.

Probably the worst thing for me though is that I just don't like the characters anymore. I used to be able to immerse myself in an Anita Blake book to the exclusion of everything else around me because I liked the characters and the world they lived in. The charcters were original, they had thier own personalities, and the stories were exciting.
Anita has become a self-righteous bully, Richard is a whiny bas**rd, and apparently Anita carries the male bits of all the other male charaters around in her pockets because they are all wusses and defer to her in everything. Dolph is a mean spirited bigot. Edward is OK, but he's not the same now that he's in LUUUUVVVVV. About the only charcter that was remotely likeable was Zebrowski and he was there for about 2 pages. There is no conflict among the characters, Anita says jump and the men say "how high". The plot was at least recognizable in this book but there was no tension and no mystery.

I used to wait eagerly for the next Anita Blake book to come out, would buy it on the release date and have read it at least twice within the first two weeks of owning it. I got The Harlequin from the library and am very pleased that I didn't spend any money on it. This will be my last Anita Blake book. I've tried to wait around for LKH to get her act together but it doesn't look like that is going to happen so I'll be spending my time and money elsewhere on more deserving books and authors.

431 of 491 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars "What's a little sex between allies?", June 6, 2007

By 

E. A Solinas "ea_solinas" (MD USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Harlequin (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, Book 15) (Hardcover)

The Anita Blake series started off well, continued for awhile, then took a sharp plunge down into the literary abyss of bad porn.

Well, "The Harlequin" scrabbles PARTLY back out of that abyss, but Laurell K. Hamilton's fifteenth Blake book still suffers from a surfeit of squickly sex, constant sexual ramblings, and a promising plot that gets swamped by the sex-with-Anitacentric politics of vampires and weres.

First a vamp cleric tells her of a threat so terrible that he can't name it, then a movie night with Nathaniel leads to a strange warning -- a white mask. Jean-Claude reveals that it's the warning of the Harlequin, a cruel vampire police who can warp their victims' minds. And apparently Anita and her string of adoring lovers (plus the still-upset Richard) have upset them.

And the politics of the situation are getting quite nasty, with alliances between weres and vamps getting nasty as they try to all have sex with Anita for power and influence, and Anita repeatedly getting hit by her various "beasts." And if they don't manage to kill the Harlequin soon, then Marmee Noir will reawaken -- and the Harlequin will be working for her.

"The Harlequin" sounds promising at first -- it's almost a hundred and fifty pages before Anita has sex with anyone. It's been several books since Hamilton could boast a length like that, and at first glance it seems to be promising a return to prior form.

Unfortunately, the sexless parts are duller than actual sex: talking/remembering/agonizing about sex. There's two long chapters devoted to Nathaniel wanting Anita to tie him up and hurt him during sex, and Anita getting squeamish about it. And halfway through, she starts having public ardeur sex, bloody sex, lesbian vampire dream sex, feathery sex, and Hamilton seems to be paving the way for sex with Edward's sixteen-year-old stepson.

None of this would matter quite so much if the plot were good -- and some parts of it are excellent. Edward's family vs. job struggle, the were politics and their tenuous relationship with the vampires, the fight between Richard and Jean-Claude, and the whole threat of the Harlequin itself is pretty thrilling, and pared down, it could have been a truly excellent book.

Unfortunately, these promising plots are bogged down in -- you guessed it -- sex. Everyone wants sex with Anita, and chapters of arguing about who gets to is just stupefyingly dull. As if that weren't bad enough, Hamilton takes another jab at her former fans, by announcing disdainfully that, "God hasn't forsaken me; it's just that all the right-wing fundamentalist Christians want to believe he has." Nice that now Anita is God's mouthpiece.

And though Anita doesn't come across near the levels of arrogance in books past, she still comes off as annoying, hypocritical (she likes rough bloody sex, but squeaks at the idea of tying a guy up?) and ridiculously superpowerful. While expecting us to like her, Hamilton has Anita trying to bully a werelion into having sex with her, and having him bumped off when he stays faithful to his wife.

As if that weren't enough, turns out that she's also powering anyone she has sex with. The long-haired, anime-style femmemen worship and fight over Anita, and the few who don't are either banished again (Richard) or are pale shadows of their former selves (Edward).

"The Harlequin" takes some baby steps back toward quality, but the obsession with sex and long-winded arguments drown the promising plot points. Better keep the mask on this one.