In Review: Obsidian Butterfly by Laurell K. Hamilton

Released: 2000                 386  pages                          

Publisher: Ace Books

Format: Paperback

ISBN: 0-441-00684-1

Again Anita is headed out of town, but this time its to accompany Edward to repay the favor she owed him. They’re headed to New Mexico to investigate a series of supernatural attacks where the victims are skinned or dead.
Here Edward goes from contract killer/sometimes friend to an actual developed character. Edward has always been a favorite, so it was nice to see him actually fleshed out. Anita meets his fiancée and her children, and there’s a tenderness that had always been lacking in him in the past. It makes that cold front he shows when on a hunt all the more icy.
There is a severe lack of Jean-Claude and Richard, which is both fantastic and horrible. The sudden drop off from them feels like a huge gap in the story, that is not so easily explained away, since it wasn’t apparent after the last novel.
Anita comes face to face with Aztec Gods, and Ulfrics, necromancers, and all around bad guys without her usual posse, but instead there is Bernardo and Olaf. Bernardo the fun, flirty killer, and Olaf the crazy, calm killer. Again the unspeakable happens, and this time even more so with the innocents involved, and Anita has to rise to the challenge to help save the day.
The book took a further departure from the normal Anita books it was a very addicting story. Once started, I could not put it down. Although the love interests were absent, love was very much on her mind and it seems she may have actually learned something about herself, yay for character development. The story was written well enough that the holes in the plot could easily be forgiven.