Anita Blake is vampire killer extraordinare, they call her The Executioner. So it's a shock when the city's strongest vampire hires her to solve the recent string of vampire murders. Now Anita has vampire politics, murders, and someone gunning for her. All in a few days, how will she ever survive? 
 I found this novel to be abrupt; as in I had to check multiple times to be sure that it was the first one in the series. There seemed to be a lack of introduction to the world and characters for the most part. Aside, from that the plot was alright, though it moved too quickly for the severity of some events. 
 As for characters, I didn't really find many - full, well rounded ones, that is. Anita is a mostly complete character but it feels like she's missing something, which hopefully gets revealed as the series continues. As for vampires, Jean Claude feels stereotypical and flat, and Nikolaos fills the little girl as crazy evil vampire quota. Surprisingly, the only character who seemed to be fully developed was Phillip. 
 The writing was good though. Actions scenes went over quite well. Descriptions of guns, other weapons, clothing, etc were a bit superfluous whereas descriptions of major events seemed on the slim side. Hopefully a balance that will even out as the series continues. Despite these problems it was an alright read. Nice to have an older vampire novel. 
 2.5-3/5