Imagine a train derailing and crashing in very, very slow motion... and then backing up, and crashing again. And again. And again. And again. 
 That's what it feels like reading "Kiss the Dead" (or more appropriately, "Kiss of Death"), the 22nd Anita Blake novel. It starts off with some promising ideas... only for Laurell K. Hamilton to get bored with all those moral issues and police problems, and devote most of the book to sex'n'wangst. Again. 
 A bunch of new vampires have appeared in St. Louis -- ordinary, non-goth, non-French vampires, made by the rogue Master Benjamin. Anita (who is dressed like a hooker, naturally) joins up with RPIT to track these vampires down, only to discover that they consider her a horrible monster and would rather die than be blood-oathed to Jean-Claude. 
 Now pretty much forget that, because nothing interesting happens in that subplot for the rest of the story. 
 Instead, Anita goes home and spends time with her various boytoys, including the underage Cynric and brainwashed "bride" Nicky. Asher has a massive tantrum because he doesn't like Anita and Jean-Claude having sex with random other people, and Anita's marathon sexathon with Nicky has dire consequences. 
 For the first few chapters, Laurell K. Hamilton seems to be making some effort to go back to when the Anita Blake series was semi-decent. She brings back RPIT and classic characters like Dolph, Zerbrowski and Larry Kirkland, and there's an actual problem with rogue vampires that has some potential moral ambiguity. 
 Only... Hamilton isn't really interested in that. So after a few chapters, she tosses that to the wayside, and devotes the rest of the book to four things: sex, whining, praising Anita, and sneering at "haters" (such as Kirkland, who is now inexplicably a "hater") who are just jealous of her vast harem of effeminate imaginary men. 
 So the rest of the book is a soupy mass of sex, sulking and long hackneyed lectures, with the occasional almost-action scene tossed in like a consolation prize. The only reason it isn't hideously boring is because it's so BAD -- there are so many silly, bizarre moments, like a vampire being exiled because he lightly injured Anita's lip. Why? Because for the next day, she can't give any of her boytoys oral sex! THE HORROR! 
 Anita continues to be an absurdist parody of a strong, sexual woman, flashing her thong at the entire police station and dressing like a hooker during official police business. She's also supposedly a wonderful person despite having a pedophilic relationship with a new teenage concubine and a man she brainwashed into subservience. What a saint. 
 The other characters are slowly becoming ghostly shadows of their former selves -- there are so many one-note characters that you can't keep track of that they all sort of blend together. The few that do stand out are the "haters" like Asher and Larry Kirkland, who just suddenly become evil meanies who dare to say mean things about poor Anita. 
 "Kiss the Dead" starts off with some promise, but it all gets thrown down the toilet as Hamilton falls back on what she likes best. Total trainwreck.