I was drinking my coffee out of the Christmas mug that Bert, my boss, had insisted everyone bring in.

The coffee that he'd accepted sat cooling on the edge of my desk. He sat in front of me, crushing his toboggan hat, kneading it in his big hands. He was shaped large and square with grime embedded under his fingernails that soap would not touch. Smitz was a construction worker, farmer, or something similar. The muscles you get from hard physical labor. Not the muscles you get from lifting weights and running around indoor tracks. George Smitz was a tall man, well over six feet. My boss, Bert, took any job that would have us. Pre-Christmas was a dead time of year, no pun intended. Which probably meant whatever he wanted me to do was something I wouldn't, or couldn't, do. No note saying zombie raising or vampire slaying. My last client of the night sat across from me. A slow time of year for raising the dead. Hamilton alternates between funny and fearsome in this larky series about a monster hunter with a few dark secrets Chapter 1 It was two weeks before Christmas. To top it off, Anita has to solve some horrific murders and keep her bounty-hunting friend Edward from killing Richard and Jean-Claude. Jean-Claude, master vampire of the city and Anita's other love interest, is getting jealous as well. The trouble is, Anita's occasionally furry boyfriend Richard is locked in a power struggle with Marcus. She's got a neatly typed list of eight missing lycanthropes given to her by Marcus, the leader of the local werewolf pack, who wants her to find them. Hamilton, 1996 The zombie-raising business gets slow in December, so Anita Blake is starting to see some oddball cases. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, The Lunatic Cafe(v2.1) Book 4 in the Anita Blake - Vampire Hunter series Laurell K.

The lunatic cafe