The Lunatic Cafe: An Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Novel

The Lunatic Cafe (1996) is the fourth Fantasy novel in the Anita Blake series, following  Circus of the Damned . The initial volume in this sequence is  Guilty Pleasures .In the previous volume, Anita was having an early morning interview with Ruebens and Inger. Bert had scheduled it just after dawn. She still had blood under her fingernails from last night's zombie raisings.Inger suggested that they just tell her what they want. Ruebens sat back down and said they want to find out the sleeping lair of the Master Vampire of the City. Anita stopped trying to help the men. Since she didn't know where Jean-Claude hid his body at night, Anita just told them the truth.After this interview, Anita got a beeper message, She checked the origin and it was from Dolph. Then the beeper rang again from Dolph. Something must have been very urgent.The victim was lying in the front yard. He was naked with blonde hair stained green from the lawn and his face and skin were very pale. There were multiple bite sites on his body. Anita measured each bite and decided that at least three vampires had attacked him, but she figured there were more probably five vamps.In this novel, Anita Blake is a licensed vampire hunter, known as the Executioner in the local undead community. She works for the Regional Preternatural Investigations Team -- the spook squad -- as an advisor on weird cases. Her regular job is with Animators, Inc., where she temporarily raises the dead for paying clients.Jean-Claude is a vampire and the Master of the City of Saint Louis. He has put two vampire marks on Anita and considers her his servant. Anita lusts after him, but doesn't agree that she is anyone's servant.Bert Vaughn is the boss at Animators, but only handles the business side of the job. He has absolutely no talent at animating zombies.Veronica Sims is a detective on retainer to Animators. Ronnie is also a close friend of Anita.Rudolf Storr is the sergeant in charge of RPIT. Dolph is a very large, muscular man with a height of six feet, eight inches. He is married to Lucille.Zerbrowski is a detective in RPIT. He is married to Katie, who is pregnant.Clive Perry is a detective in RPIT. He is a tall, slender Black.Edward is a hired assassin. He kills preternatural creatures. He goes by the name of Ted Forrester when he is not on a job.Marcus is an alpha male werewolf and the packleader. His alpha female is Raina Wallis.Richard Zeeman is a science teacher at a local junior high. He is tall and muscular. He also is an alpha male in the werewolf pack. He wants to be the packleader, but has refused to kill Marcus.Irving is a reporter for the Saint Louis Post-Dispatch. He is also a werewolf in Marcus' pack.George Smitz is a laborer of some kind. He is married to Margaret Smitz and they have two children.Titus is a county sheriff. Aikensen is one of his deputies.In this story, Anita has a date to watch Guys and Dolls at the Fox Theater. She has one more appointment that evening. Bert has scheduled Smitz, but nothing is written about the nature of the problem.Anita gets Smitz talking and learns that his wife is a lycanthrope and has been missing for two days. Anita asks if he has reported the disappearance to the police, but Smitz is afraid that the lycanthropy will become public knowledge if the police are involved. So Anita refers Smitz to Ronnie.Anita is running late for the show. When she gets to a parking place, the streets are mostly clear except for cops directing traffic. When she gets inside, people are still coming out of the ticket office.In the lobby, Anita immediately locates Richard. He is tall enough to stick up out of the crowd. His eyes light up when he sees Anita.Anita enjoys the musical and so does Richard. They wait for the crowd to clear out after the standing ovation. Jean-Claude finds them alone in the theater and seems angry. Anita feels that he is jealous of Richard.The three are standing in the empty theater arguing when Anita's beeper goes off. She tries to get away, but the men are still arguing. The beeper goes off two more times before she can reach a phone.Storr has a possible RPIT case way out in the county. When she gets there, Dolph is arguing with the Sheriff. Deputy Aikensen tells her to leave the area. He pulls a gun on her and seems ready to shoot.Anita calls for Zerbrowski and Storr and waves at them. Clive comes to see what is wrong. He immediately notices the gun pointing at Anita and tries to talk to the deputy.When the deputy turns toward Clive and makes a racist remark, Anita pulls her Browning and covers Aikensen. The deputy seems ready to fire at her and she starts squeezing the trigger. Then Titus tells Aikensen to put up the gun.When he lifts his pistol, Anita keeps her pistol pointed at him. Dolph tells her to put away her piece, but Anita points out that the deputy still has his hand above the pistol. After Titus tells Aikensen to snap his holster, Anita puts away her piece.Eventual the jurisdictional argument is settled to the extent of letting Anita see the crime scene. It has been trampled by the Sheriff's deputies, but she sees enough to tell that the killer had been a shapeshifter. It probably hadn't been a lycanthrope, but Anita doesn't know enough about other kinds of shapeshifters to make a reasonable guess on the type. The Sheriff is finally convinced that the man had not been attacked by a bear.Anita gets home about two in the morning. Irving has been waiting for her for three hours. He has an invitation from Marcus to come to a meeting. Anita refuses the invitation.Irving says that he will get in trouble if she doesn't come. She definitely wants to go to bed, but goes with Irving to the meeting. Marcus is not the only influential preternatural at the meeting. The wereleopards, wererats and wereswans were also represented.This tale puts Anita into a hunt for someone or something making lycantropes disappear. Anita tells Ronnie that the Smitz case has become more complicated. They discuss the case while shopping for Christmas presents.Edward also appears on the scene. He has a contact that wants him to kill a preternatural creature. He doesn't discuss the case with Anita.Anita is ambivalent about Marcus, but doesn't like Raina at all. The next installment in this sequence is  Bloody Bones .Highly recommended for Hamilton fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of preternatural creatures, werewolf politics, and a lot of unsatiated lust. Read and enjoy!-Arthur W. Jordin

I enjoyed reading this book. Another action packed book with twists and turns and a surprise ending. The mystery of who’s killing the shapeshifters had me guessing. The action has me glued to the book.There’s more development between Richard the werewolf and Jean Claude, the vampire. Both are in love with Anita and trying to win her love. She’s attracted to both and love them both in her way. She’s just not sure if she can be with “monsters” that aren’t human. I’m not a fan of the love triangle and both men vying for her. I find myself like the vampire for her more than the more human werewolf. He doesn’t seem strong enough for her.

I loved this installment, and I didn't think the last book could be bested. Surprise! This book had an interesting storyline with so many twists, even very very subtle ones, that I almost suffered from whiplash. The action packed plot left my teeth clenching so hard I was waiting for them to start snapping. I do NOT want to do spoilers so I feel kind of limited here. I'm finding Richard's hypocrisy a little difficult to handle. I like the character. He is good to the character of Anita. But... he is shocked when she does some things that seem extreme, and yet his pack, as well as his own freaky reaction to something truly appalling done by some in his pack, is okay. (Hard time explaining without spoiling). No consequences needed for their atrocities because I guess the character thinks it's in their nature, no need for punishment. But Anita does something I would have done myself if I wasn't such a pacifist and he is shocked. The author brilliantly weaves the storyline to slide in that fine line between right and wrong because I'm positive I am not the only reader with the "maybe Richard and Anita don't make such a good couple" thoughts happening. You will love this wild roller coaster ride of suspense, terror, and emotions. I'm exhausted. I love it when an author makes you pause and ponder not only the story but the way it relates so closely with the world around us. In a strange way this series makes you realize how being greedy, selfish, and a bigot who only does what benefits themselves is wrong on so many levels. My mom used to rail against me for standing up for others. She said when you stand up for others you always end up standing alone. My answer to her? Well, at least I stand up.

Love this series, Laurell K. Hamilton is one of my favorite authors!!

Well, this is book number four in the series and I'm a little surprised to find I'm actually quite enjoying it. I've got past my overwhelming irritation of Anita's hard nosed wisecracking and the author's obsession with armament and find the books are quite compelling.This one dealt more with the lycanthropes and pack dynamics, which was quite interesting, and develops the love triangle between Anita, Richard and Jean-Claude, although not a huge amount else really happens except in sort of little pockets of action every now and then throughout the book. The skinning of the naga and the disappearance of the lycanthropes was shoe horned in a tad if I'm honest; seemingly to make room for the love triangle, but I went with the flow and didn't find it a problem really.My only (small) criticism would be that the books are all very "wordy", if that isn't a contradiction in terms - there's an awful lot of either description or dialogue before anything actually happens. Still, I can accept that that's the style and still find these books a good read. I have ordered numbers five and six which says it all really.

Laurell k. Hamilton writes in a style quite unusal to most vampire writers around at the moment I find, she's very direct and cynical about the world and this book is no different to the others in the series. I like the way Anita is direct in most aspects of her life and love the way she finds the girlier elements of life as a woman totally alien! I think a lot of women on a level can relate! Ok not in terms of having a Master vampire trying desperately to seduce her but in the sense of sometimes wanting to slob around in sweats and an old tee and cuddle a penguin! Rather than glam up and impress a man! Her animator role and the police side of her life I feel was a little lacking in this one and its something I've enjoyed in the other books in the series and I hope Hamilton isn't siding with the masses and will make the rest too relationshipy and more like the more popular books of this genre. Have just downloaded bloody bones so we will see how she carries it on, we'll written fiction though and the way vampires lycanthropes and other supernatural beings are accepted as part of society makes this series a great form of escapism! Definitely worth reading.

I was disappointed with this book having quite enjoyed the others. A thin plot (albeit with a good denoument) was padded out with a very bad version of a Mills and Boon romance as Anita wrestled with the competing worries of not wanting premarital sex (initially described as casual sex which is not the same thing) and then worrying about whether she actually wants to marry Richard though she clearly, in a good mood wants sex with him. And of course The Head Vampire gets jealous and interferes as well. This could have worked well but I found Anita's rapid changes of mood just too much of a stretch of the imagination. If this is what she is really like I fail to see why Richard and Jean Claude are so infatuated and advise them both to run for the hills.

I loved these books when I first started reading them as I enjoyed the balance between adult themes and violence but as the series went on it just got more and more about Anita's obsession with sex than her job hunting and taking down bad vamps and supes! Shame really as they started out so well.....Not everyone wants to read a book about a vampire/supe hunter that does more vamps than she kills!If I had wanted to read porn I would have bought accordingly!

I loved everything about this series of books and just couldn't put them down, fantastically written with stunning and captivating characters, Multi layers of sub plots that are easily followed and wonderful action with romance. A must read for so many reasons. I am sure you will love these books as much as I did