Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake has left St. Louis for a short trip to Vegas. But Blake is not heading to Sin City for the bright lights, she’s chasing a vampire serial killer, one who has already escaped her once. He’s responsible for a trail of destruction and death that stretches across the country, and he is getting more vicious and more powerful as he travels. Skin Trade follows Anita as she struggles to contain both her growing powers and the deadly killer.

Vittorio draws Anita from the safety of St. Louis with a horrific prize from his latest set of murders. When she contacts the Las Vegas Police Department, it quickly becomes clear that catching this killer will be impossible for the police, or Anita, alone. She will need the help of the Vegas PD, a SWAT back-up, and three other US Marshals to bring Vittorio to justice. All of these teams are not instant allies, though, and the politics and in-fighting that goes on is nearly as dangerous to Anita as Vittorio. Of course, she has not left her own problems behind in St. Louis; she still needs to feed the ardeur she inherited from the vampire Jean-Claude, and, as her powers continue to grow, Anita begins to fear that they will consume her from within.

The fact that one of the US Marshalls there to work with Blake is a barely-in-control serial killer himself and the police liason has an irrational hatred of her compounds the stress of the murder investigation and leaves her with few friends to depend on. Add in vampire politics, the territorial were-tiger wife of the current Master of Vegas, and Vittorio, using all of the confusion to hide his tracks and plan his next murders, and Anita, with all of her powers and back-up, is in an isolated, and dangerous, position.

In a departure from the most recent books in the series, this one focuses more on the mystery and search for the vampire than on Anita’s on-going dramas. However, the final third of the book does see the return of a host of Anita’s issues (stalking all-powerful vampires, sex magic, and cranky boyfriends) and slightly overshadows the rest of the team hunting for Vittorio. Even with that caveat, Hamilton draws out the tension in the hunt for the killer, and Anita’s success never seems guaranteed. In fact, although she now seems to have a dizzying array of powers, she is not invincible – her powers are almost as dangerous for her as they are for her enemies. As she searches for Vittorio, it becomes clear that he is one of the strongest vampires she has ever hunted, and with her powers barely under her control, Anita will struggle to catch him.

In a series this lengthy, there is a lot of back-history assumed in each of the novels. Hamilton does an excellent job of letting the story being told here take precedence over Anita’s lengthy (and extremely complicated) history. In fact, until the last third of the book, Anita’s distance from St. Louis gives her, and the reader, a slight breather from the drama she has left behind at home. Skin Trade sees Anita Blake fighting one of the strongest vampires she has even encountered – while she is hampered by powers that could either be her salvation or her doom.

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