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The Laughing Corpse by Laurell K. Hamilton
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The Laughing Corpse (original 1994; edition 2002)

by Laurell K. Hamilton

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6,279841,535 (3.89)71
"The early Anita Blake novels find new life in trade paperback--as perfect collectibles for long-time fans or as great ways for new readers to sink their teeth into the series. In The laughing corpse, a creature from beyond the grave is tearing a swath of murder through St. Louis. And Anita will learn that there are some secrets better left buried--and some people better off dead."--Publisher's description.… (more)
Member:joeybear
Title:The Laughing Corpse
Authors:Laurell K. Hamilton
Info:Jove (2002), Paperback, 304 pages
Collections:Your library
Rating:
Tags:Anita Blake, Vampires

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The Laughing Corpse by Laurell K. Hamilton (1994)

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Showing 1-5 of 81 (next | show all)
*3.5 ( )
  Fortunesdearest | Feb 2, 2024 |
The first one was ok, but I really liked this. Dominga Salvador was a good villainess. It was a good fast read and I was able to get into the story quite a bit. Hopefully there is a lot more Jean-Claude in the other books. I love his character. Anita just needs to sleep with him already. I am coming to this series way after the fact, My best friend is completely in love with it so it has to be good. I know a bit about the controversy and poor reviews for the later books. I can't really say anything about it yet as I haven't gotten that far. I'm not loving this series I however like. It is a very entertaining read so far. ( )
  b00kdarling87 | Jan 7, 2024 |
I don't remember enjoying the first book very much so only god knows why I picked this one up. I was pleasantly surprised though. My one problem was the interactions with Jean Claude, as their conversations got so repetitive I ended up skimming those parts.
Other than that I quite enjoyed it and found the mystery very interesting. ( )
  KayleeWin | Apr 19, 2023 |
Amazing, show stopping, spectacular, never the same, totally unique, completely not ever been done before, absolutely loved it! I was waffling between a 4 and 5 star for most of the read, but the ending! Jean-Claude! Like many a teen girl, I had a thing for vampires back in the day. I've read and watched a lot of vampire stories and Jean-Claude has to be the best vampire in vampire history. I sped through this audiobook in two days and the voice acting was phenomenal. ma petite, Jean Claude's nickname for Anita, sounded like a come on every time he said it. I've never been a big fan of slow burn romances or enemies to lovers tropes, but this one works so much for me. Anita and JC are more frenemies than enemies. Anita has really sensible character-driven reasons for not engaging in a romance with him and JC has very sensible political reasons for wanting Anita in his corner/bed. So the tension between them makes sense.

Anita is so incredibly flawed that it's actually amazing that I find her so likeable. Anita is way too concerned about being "one of the guys," she always believes the ends justify the means, she's a black-and-white thinker, and a total prude. It's easy to see that Hamilton is setting Anita up for big character growth in some or possibly all of these areas throughout the rest of her series. This book in particular deals with Anita getting a better grip on her own identity. Is Anita a monster or not? We don't get a simple answer to that question. But in this book Anita psychology abuses a mentally ill clairvoyant, absolutely terrifies a disabled prostitute, and kills three humans. Several times in this book Anita is asked or asks herself "would you have really pulled the trigger? could you really kill me? could I be pushed to kill her?" Anita is pushed to wonder if she's a good guy or a bad guy and eventually she has to realize she's something in between, which would break her black-and-white view of the world.

Thematically, I found this book interesting. In particular there was a conversation between Anita and a necromancer who committed human sacrifice. Anita is trying to understand how someone so good could be pushed to kill. And it made me wonder if we're all capable of killing, but each of us has our own specific level of a metaphorical push needed to get there. While most of us need an incredibly hard and persistent shove to get there, Anita seems to only need a brush of the shoulder.

As much as I found this an entertaining ride, I'm also interested in it from a craft perspective. The Anita Blake is such a long-running best-seller series, that it's actually fascinating to see how Hamilton set it up. I love that she pushed romance to the background and gave Anita so many ways in which to grow and mature. There are always a few different plots or cases going on to keep things moving quickly and big life/death themes are touched on but never hamfisted into the story. It's just really solid storytelling. ( )
  tanyaferrell | Dec 30, 2022 |
I still think Anita Blake is a bitch but I like her a little more than I did in the first book…not much, just a little. She is just too tough and opinionated for me. She makes inappropriate jokes at crime scenes that involve murdered infants and children just to prove that she is a hardass to the other cops on the scene. She seems to have a bad opinion of everyone she knows because they are not 5’3 and 105 pounds like her wonderful self, the woman who all the men want because she is so hot and badass. Gag! I looked up the author and she looks like what I would imagine she wrote Anita Blake to look like but for some reason when I picture Anita in my head she looks like the mother of the lead character on Grimm, the television show, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio. I don’t want to offend that actress but she is really mean looking and looks like a tough old bird, a little too thin and a little too used up. (I'd add a photo but I don't know how)

The storyline and plot building in this series is damn good though so I have been able to look beyond the lead characters narcissism and bigotry. She hates vampires, overweight people – basically, anyone who isn’t just like her except for zombies. She seems to like them.

In this book, Anita is offered a million dollars to raise a 300 year old zombie but in order to raise a zombie who has been dead that long, there would have to be a human sacrifice. Anita refuses but Harold Gaynor, the rich man who wants the zombie raised is determined to get his way. He starts sending his thugs to try to scare Anita into helping him. Of course, Anita kicks their butts each time but she knows that they will get lucky one of these days and she could lose her life.

Someone has raised a zombie who is killing and eating families. Usually zombies don’t eat people but someone raised this one and either got away or someone is ordering it to kill. Zombies follow orders and do kill. They are super strong and can rip a human apart in minutes. Anita goes to the Voodoo Queen, Dominga Salvador, of St. Louis to get help with the zombie problem but offends the woman by refusing to help her raise zombies who have their soul intact so she can make money off of them, selling them to people as slaves. Zombies with souls do not rot. Zombies have no rights so people want to start using them for slave labor. Up until now, it didn’t work out well because they all end up rotting. The smell alone is not worth it. Anita wants to start legislation to give zombies some basic rights so people cannot use them.

Anita believes that Senora Salvador may be involved in raising the zombie who is killing people. Because Anita offended the Voodoo Queen, she tells her she will send something deadly to her that will crawl through her window. Now, Anita has two psychos after her.

These books aren’t romances but there is an underlying attraction between Anita and Jean-Claude, the Master Vampire of the city. She acts like he is the most repulsive and evil thing around because he is a vampire yet when she needs his help, she runs to him and he does her bidding because he is so attracted to her. She is so rude to him. Actually, she is rude to everyone. There are times she thinks that doing or saying something would not be the polite thing to do but she is always saying and doing rude things. I don’t know how anyone can stand her or would want to be her friend. I guess she is so pretty and so amazing, everyone wants her.

I can’t get enough of this series though. What is wrong with me? I like the storyline and I’m secretly hoping she starts being more likeable, laugh at herself a little, cut off her penis and start being more feminine and maybe wear cute clothes. Some of her outfits sound hideous; jogging shorts with socks that sound suspiciously like tube socks, polo shirts, windbreakers, pantyhose and purple dress suits. And since I’m a hopeless romantic, I’m cheering for Anita to fall in love with Jean-Claude.

I’ve already started reading the next book, Circus of the Damned.
www.paranormalromanceslut.com ( )
  dragonlion | Jul 30, 2022 |
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» Add other authors (15 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Laurell K. Hamiltonprimary authorall editionscalculated
Alexis, Kimberlysecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
White, CraigCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed

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To Ricia Mainhardt, my agent: beautiful, intelligent, confident, and honest. What more could any writer ask for?
To everyone who bought this book years ago,
because if you had not,
all those who recently found it
would never have had the chance
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Harold Gaynor's house sat in the middle of intense green lawn and the graceful sweep of trees.
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"The early Anita Blake novels find new life in trade paperback--as perfect collectibles for long-time fans or as great ways for new readers to sink their teeth into the series. In The laughing corpse, a creature from beyond the grave is tearing a swath of murder through St. Louis. And Anita will learn that there are some secrets better left buried--and some people better off dead."--Publisher's description.

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Book description
"THE OLDER THE ZOMBIE, THE BIGGER THE DEATH NEEDED TO RAISE IT."

After a few centuries, the only death "big enough" is a human sacrifice. I know, because I'm an animator. My name is Anita Blake.

Working for Animators, Inc., is just a job--like selling insurance. But all the money in the world wasn't enough for me to take on the particular job Harold Gaynor was offering.

Somebody else did, though--a rogue animator. Now he's not just raising the dead... he's raising Hell.

And it's up to me to stop it...
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