When I first picked up the book, I thought my god it's huge! The book is much longer than the others in the Anita Blake series, not that this deterred me in the least I devoured this book as I do all by Laurell Hamilton, I am now a devoted fan. Even though the book is very long, it is still not long enough and through parts of the book I flicked back to see if I missed pages as some parts let you assume things happened that Laurell would normally let you experience. That is the only gripe I have about this book :) Many Laurell Hamilton fans are dismayed by the overt sexuality and amount of sex in the novels. I am not one of these fans, I think the sexuality is fabulous and along with the violence and gore makes all her novels oage turners and keeos the pace on the extreme dial. In this book however there is no gratuous sex scenes so many fans will be gratified with that. This book takes a look in to Edward, who Anita always hopes she will never become. He is the scariest "person" she knows which is saying a lot espeically with her group of BDSM friends :) Edward, Anita and recruits are hunting down the most gruesome monster I have ever met on my reading travels. The Murders are disgustingly gruesome and I said "Ewwww!" a lot out loud while reading this novel, but I loved it! I would not recommend it for anyone with a weak constitution. Not my favourite Anita Blake book, though probably the one that affected me the most. I really missed Richard and Jean Claude in this novel though and will be happy to get back to them in my next reading :)