The Laughing Corpse [Paperback]

"The Laughing Corpse" by Laurell K. Hamilton, the second novel in the addictive Anita Blake - Vampire Hunter series, is a fun-filled thrill ride that will have readers craving more. Even better than the first of the series, this book grabs the reader by the throat and doesn't let go. Full of page-turning suspense, this book is escapist reading at its very best!
When Anita Blake, tough-as-nails vampire executioner and necromancer, is offered a million dollars by Harold Gaynor to raise a 300-year-old zombie, she has no choice but to decline. A zombie that old can only be raised one way - with a human sacrifice. Mr. Gaynor is not at all pleased with her refusal, but Anita will not be bought or threatened.
Unfortunately, when incredibly violent and gruesome murders start occurring, apparently perpetrated by a flesh-eating zombie, Anita realizes that someone else has raised Gaynor's zombie.
Anita seeks the help of the country's most powerful voodoo priestess, Dominga Salvador, in hopes that she might know about the killer zombie. However, when Anita refuses an offer to work with Dominga, it puts her on the voodoo priestess' list of enemies.
Anita is left fighting off Gaynor's goons, a murderous zombie, and all the nasty preternatural monsters Dominga Salvador can send her way, which makes for some great reading!
On top of all her other troubles, Anita must deal with the advances of Jean-Claude, the new Master Vampire of the City. Although Jean-Claude is mind-numbingly sexy, Anita refuses to become involved with a vampire. But Jean-Claude doesn't give up that easy, and his witty and sometimes wicked exchanges with Anita are truly entertaining.
"The Laughing Corpse" is a suspenseful, non-stop action adventure set in Hamilton's weird and wild world of vampires, werewolves, and zombies. Readers will be absorbed into this wonderfully imaginative alternate reality and will enjoy every minute spent in the company of Anita and the gang. So pick this book up today, put the phone off the hook, and enjoy!

Zombies make awesome murder weapons. And when your anti-heroine is able to raise zombies, they make an excellent source for a horror/mystery plot. Laurell K. Hamilton's "The Laughing Corpse" has plenty of grotesque horror and zombie-related nastiness, as well as some clever social questions. But she fails somewhat in creating a convincing mystery story -- not to mention a tolerable heroine.

After rejecting psycho-millionaire client Harold Gaynor (who wants a very old zombie raised, requiring a human sacrifice), Anita is called out to look at the scene of a crime that seems to have been committed by zombies. So she starts investigating possible suspects -- including Dominga Salvador, a malevolent old vaudun priestess who has found a way to keep a zombie ensouled.

Unfortunately some very nasty things -- both living and dead -- are trying to stop Anita's investigations, both into the zombie murders and Harold Gaynor. With the solicitous assistance of Jean Claude and a fellow animator, Anita is able to find more and more information on the zombie-related murders -- and it turns out that Salvador and Gaynor may be working together.

Laurell K. Hamilton was pretty clearly shooting for an "old pulp noir mystery" feel in "The Laughing Corpse" -- acid-tongued anti-hero, grimy urban atmosphere, nasty big-shots, and a series of mysterious deaths. So she fills it with many descriptions of guns, dismembered bodies and creepy-crawly scenes (such as Anita holding a moving bird foot).

Her dialogue-heavy writing does tend to be lean and mildly hard-boiled, with a distinctly horrific vibe (prostitute Wheelchair Wanda tells Anita about Gaynor's sex games). But Hamilton has a rather clumsy style: endless sentence fragments ("Not resurrection. I'm not that good. I mean zombies. The shambling dead. Rotting corpses. Night of the living dead. That kind of zombie"), horrendous dialogue (""F**k you." "I have already offered that." "Damn you, Jean-Claude, damn you") and random rants about whatever bothers Anita at the moment.

In fact, her choppy stripped down style is all the more apparent when Jean-Claude enters the scene , inspiring odes to his vaguely effeminate clothing, hair, "glittering, dark jewel" eyes and "the perfection of his body." It's almost funny to see Hamilton go so completely gaga over a fictional vampire -- and despite Jean-Claude's spooky behavior, she' too in love for him for him to come across as truly scary.

It's too bad, because his manipulative cleverness would make him a brilliant anti-hero, and the question of ensouled zombies is a truly ghastly, thought-provoking one. Unfortunately, we have Anita -- a twenty-four-year-old woman whose seething bitterness is never explained.

It feels like Hamilton wanted to create a Raymond Chandleresque anti-heroine, but tried too hard. Instead Anita is obnoxious, rude, bitter, whiny and despises anyone/anything feminine ("The thought that I had actually spent money on anything pink was more than I could bear"), believing that this makes her "one of the boys." Hamilton uses "zombie rights" to try to make Anita seem compassionate, but her raving, inexplicable hatred of all vampires negates it.

"The Laughing Corpse" has a good story buried somewhere under the sentence fragments and cliche dialogue -- not to mention an awesome vampire and horrific zombies. -- but the heroine is simply too unpleasant.

The Laughing Corpse was ok but after reading Guilty Pleasures it kinda let you down. you still get to read about Anita and Jean-Claude (whom i think is great). this book was not as good becuause all she does is kill a zombie that was raised and was killing people...other than that there is a little more to keep the plot going. i would still read it because it is crucial to the series and though there isn't as much desired from it you still need to read it and it is ok.