Hit List

As punchy as her first foray, Anita Blake's 20th adventure (after 2010's Bullet) finds the intrepid vampire hunter far from her familiar St. Louis environs. Someone is slaughtering weretigers just outside of Tacoma. When Anita recognizes the handiwork of the Harlequin, ninja-like paranormal assassins, she suspects they're in the employ of the Mother of All Darkness, the legendary vampire queen who wants to reincarnate herself in Anita's body and take advantage of her mingled vampire and lycanthrope bloodlines. Complicating matters are a marshal who detests Anita for no apparent reason and a psychopathic deputy who wants to kill her. The action occasionally bogs down in the sexual trysts Anita indulges in to stoke her supernatural abilities, but for the most part, Hamilton goes back to basics and delivers a sleek, hard-boiled page-turner. (June)