Cerulean Sins Chapter Twenty

Dottie's chapter is here

And Chelsea is still doing Merry Gentry, here 

So Jason is so fucking stupid it literally takes Anita the good part of two chapters to help him put on latex gloves.

Dolph shows up. He's another one of those characters where LKH tries to give him a personality by assigning him arbitrary physical and/or mannerism traits. In Dolph's case, he happens to be 6'8. That and hating like every supernatural creature out there is the entirety of his character, which is especially offensive considering he heads the woo woo department. That would be like if a white supremacist presided over a case of racially motivated police brutality...oh wait. Sorry LKH, maybe you're on to something here.

That said Dolph is also the only sane one, because he recognizes how ridiculous it is to have this random civilian at his crime scene. Not that anyone will use this juicy fact in court later, since court never seems to happen in these books, and even if it did everyone is dangerously incompetent anyway. Like, I'm pretty sure they all need to live in a totally round room where the only toys are stuffed animals and you're only allowed plastic cutlery to eat with.

Jason has this remarkable insight to share with us, re: the gloves which are practically a character in and of themselves at this point: "how come it feels wet and powdery all at the same time?"

Now, I am a huge White Wolf fan. I mean, shit's crazy. I have like three hundred World of Darkness books. In their Werewolf: the Apocalypse line, they had three breeds of werewolf. One of them was called the lupus, i.e. a werewolf that began life as a normal wolf. If Jason were a lupus, this scene might be at least understandable, if inane. Presuming this concept doesn't exist in Anitaverse, though, there's really no excuse for this display. Especially since it's sheer bland idiocy is turning my brain in to a particularly thin and unappetizing gruel.

So Anita tries to tell Dolph that she can't have Jason just go sit on the porch because "what if someone recognizes him? Do you really want the headlines to read werewolves attack suburbia?"

YOU JUST WALKED THROUGH A FIELD OF REPORTERS WITH HIM YOU GODDAMN FOOL WHAT IS THIS BOOK

Okay but the awesome thing is that Dolph is not having any of Anita's shit. She won't be parted from Jason so he bounces them both from the scene.

Oh, except I'm supposed to think Dolph is a nasty bigot because he's sick of Anita's shit. Anita delivers the line "you bastard" which reads to me as completely emotionally dead.

Anita tries to tell Dolph he can't do that shit at his own crime scene. Dolph grabs her and drags her upstairs to see whatever the murderer left. There's a bunch of blood and gore. Whatever. Things apparently smell like hamburger, but that is definitely not what death smells like. The dead void their bowels and bladder, for one thing, and if your hamburger meat smells like fecal matter and rotting viscera then you need to find a new butcher.

Dolph is manhandling Anita and practically rubbing her face in the blood, because "one of your friends did this." This is not cool. But here comes Clive Perry, Darky McSoftspoken, to tell Dolph the little lady has had enough. You see, he's "African American" and "one of the most soft-spoken men I'd ever met." So basically Clive is a privileged white lady's fantasy about what a good black man should be, that is, soft spoken, light skinned, submissive, and only on stage when Miss Anita needs rescuing. Funny how LKH never bothers to describe anyone as white, isn't it? That's just assumed to be the case.

Dolph keeps jerking Anita around because every male in this series is a gross stereotype of one kind or another. Clive tries to intervene again and Dolph emphasizes that the crime appears to have been committed by some type of shapeshifter, which he's hell bent on holding Anita personally responsible for. Here's a thought: if you think she's compromised because of her ties to the supernatural world, why don't you just fucking fire her instead of assaulting her?

Anita hits Dolph till he lets her go. She falls in the blood, which almost soaks through her panties.

"then my knee smeared in something that wasn't blood."

This is so horrifying Anita scrambles out in to the hall and throws up on the "pale" carpet, because that's a necessary detail when your MC is hoarking all over the place. So what is this thing that isn't blood? A liver? Eyeballs? A spot of tea? Tapioca pudding?

Anita faints. Thank fuck for that.

Cerulean Sins Chapter Nineteen

They're going to another crime scene, this time in a neighborhood called Chesterfield. Anita describes Chesterfield in the same mind numbingly inane way she described Wildwood.

To wit: "There were medium sized trees in the yards, which meant the area was over ten years old. It takes time to grow trees."

Words is LKH's business.

I love how this bullshit about trees is supposed to show me that Anita is a wonderful investigator even though she's never heard of landscaping. People regularly buy in trees and have them planted at all stages of maturity.

T.V. and print reporters are both here. Anita can tell the difference by whether they have tape recorders.

Man, she sure is hot shit huh?

Jason and Anita tell each other stupid things with their swollen word holes. Words leak from their useless faces and say things like, getting through the press will be a problem, and haha everyone knows you're a cock sheath for the biggest vampire penor around town. Well, that's basically how Jason says it, anyway, because Jason is a werepig. The chauvinist kind.

Anita says she still has her badge on. Thanks for focusing on the most important details, LKH.

Reporters crowd Anita and she thinks it's a bad idea to just say no comment, so she says some shit they immediately misconstrue, obviously. Remember that video floating around awhile back about how you should never speak to the police? That should go for reporters too. Anita is also a fucking idiot AGAIN because somehow even though she's almost a celebrity herself and attached to law enforcement, it's like this is the first time she's had to navigate this situation. It's just an excuse to put Anita on center stage again, like this is a wish fulfillment fanfic written by a lonely middle aged woman whose life is empty.

"Marshall Blake [the title] made me feel like I should be guest starring on Gunsmoke."

Okay I'll give you that one, that's pretty good.

Anita knew she was coming to a series of crime scenes, yet left her crime scene kit at home.

She's suddenly talking to Jason about the importance of latex gloves at a crime scene even though at the first crime scene she was a total shit show.

There's a detective here named Merlioni, who has a habit of calling Anita girly and chickie. I am just going to assume that they're close enough to do this because otherwise my head will explode.

...oh, except Anita doesn't even know Merlioni's first name.

Nor does she realize he smokes, though they've been through hell and back together. SHOW DON'T TELL.

Jason and Anita smell meat and the beasts wake up and growl and shit. Prepare for a DARKITY DARK crime scene in the next chapter.

Cerulean Sins Chapter Eighteen

Anita finally gets to the crime scene itself, despite absolutely zero investigative strategy being applied. There's a guy nailed to the wall of what I can only assume is a house. The details consist of "small porch" "hallway" and "straight backed chair."

Anita thinks it's weird that someone took the time to nail this guy to the wall, yet didn't imitate the crucifixion of Jesus.

She touches the bloody wall and only then realizes she's forgotten her surgical gloves.

She has interacted with an officer, Zebrowski, plus a second officer Zebrowski gave orders to, yet no one has mentioned even the most basic investigative procedures?

Oh Zebrowski is at fault for letting her in here without gloves, according to Anita. He's probably worried about getting his spleen ripped out if he dares correct Anita the great and powerful. But he's a fucking idiot too because he says "I didn't expect you to touch the evidence."

Anita uses some hand sanitizer, which makes her hands "feel wet, though I knew they weren't."

The next paragraph is so ridiculous, I don't even know how to get through it. Okay. So. Around this body--which is white haired and male--there are a bunch of "candy colored" pentagrams drawn in chalk. Plus Nordic runes, which Anita totally knows tons about because of her one semester of comparative religion way back when.

Personally I also feel that if your job is dealing with the supernatural, you ought to take more than a single paltry semester of comparative religion.

Anita launches in to a long As You Know, Bob where she tells Zebrowski how these runes don't make any sense together and how rituals require a specific purpose and basically a bunch of shit a guy in his position should definitely know. Hell, he could probably just Google it on his smartphone and get the same insight.

This culminates in the worst exposition known to man. Anita tells Zebrowski that she can't sense any magic here. He says that Tammy told him the same thing.

"Tammy Reynolds, your one and only witch on staff?"

Apparently Dolph doesn't trust Tammy because she's a witch, even though Tammy is a Christian witch. Why in the fuck he trusts Anita more I have no idea. Anita is banging the Master of the City. And Asher. And Micah. And...you get the idea. So Anita is double checking Tammy's work because...?

Plus holy shit if Dolph is this bigoted there should be protests and riots and controversial court cases and fucking sit ins until he's bounced from his job.

Dolph is apparently in a bad mood. Now that Zebrowski has told her that, Anita is in a bad mood. She's in such a bad mood that she manages to "stomp" in three inch high heels. Is there anything Anita can't do???

She also finally confirms this is a house.

Anita goes on telling Zebrowski absolutely bog standard information, like how the crime scene is obviously staged and how someone who stood to inherit this guy's money (because the house is really nice, despite being barely described) probably had a hand in it. Dolph thought all this too, or so Zebrowski says, so at least not everyone has the brain of a concussed goldfish.

Another incredible clunker:

"You just don't like that she (Tammy)'s dating Larry Kirkland, your animator in training." 

THIS IS LKH'S JOB. SHE GETS PAID TO COME UP WITH LINES LIKE THIS.

Plus, really? This is the third book I've done and I don't think Larry has been mentioned at all so far. And I am supposed to care because...?

Anita has to go to the next scene because it's super violent and Dolph needs her to tell him whether a human did it. Isn't he supposed to be her superior? He doesn't know?

Cerulean Sins Chapter Seventeen

Anita and Jason continue pissing all over the crime scene. We have the obligatory random law enforcement official who tries to give Anita shit, this time over Jason being her boy toy. He says something like

"I like my women bigger." In reference to Anita. Anita says,

"Funny, that's what your wife says."

Does...does this make sense to anyone else? Because I'm not sure it does. I mean, is she trying to say this guy's wife is a secret lesbian who likes them big and beautiful?

So I pretty much hate cops--okay no, that's not true. I hate the fucked up system that gives them disproportionate power--and even I find their portrayals in this series tiresome. I think it bothers me also because it just reinforces the glaring reality of what's happening here: Anita is the only character we're supposed to consider human. Almost everyone else is a shadow puppet. It's like LKH is twiddling her fingers and saying "I'm a cop rawr rawr rawr, sexisms!" through her clenched teeth.

Zebrowski is here. His entire character consists of being so messy his wife has to manage him like he's a small child. How lovable!

Both Dolph and Zebrowski got promoted. Anita manages to work some throat closingly binary bullshit in to even this tiny detail:

"If I'd been a man, I'd have let it go, but I was a girl, and girls poke at things more than men." 

Oh thanks for your amazing gender knowledge, Anita. When did you get your PhD in feminist studies? Tell me more.

Also ONLY YOU CAN STOP COMMA ABUSE. EVERY TEN SECONDS, THREE COMMAS DIE OF OVERUSE.

IN THE AAAAARMS OF AN AAAANGEL...

Ahem. Moving along.

Dolph apparently isn't cool with Anita dating a shapeshifter. Zebrowski is trying to be cool though so he invites Micah and Anita to his promotion celebration party. Oh excuse me, he offers Anita "a social peace pipe."

Zebrowski and Jason joke about trying to fuck Anita.

Anita doesn't feel good because Asher bit her, plus she's stupid enough to wear high heels when she's dizzy and at a crime scene. Zebrowski wonders if she killed the vampire who bit her.

Wouldn't it be great if Anita was you know, a vampire hunter? Anita Blake: vampire dry humper.

Jason stays behind because apparently they're going in to the crime scene now. Uh, okay.

Zebrowski calls both Anita and Dolph stupid.

Cerulean Sins Chapter Sixteen

"The first crime scene was in Wildwood, the new bastion of money and social climbing."

Something about this sentence hits my ear all wrong. I am not quite sure what the problem is, but it's awkward, even stilted. Also holy shit, I did some research on Wildwood and it is 92% white.

Does Anita judge the people here for profiting from gentrification, or presumably keeping what few PoC there are out of such an exclusive address? Or perhaps, if we absolutely must judge someone (and it's an Anita Blake book, so of course we do), we might judge the idea that one has only achieved success if one beats out one's neighbors in total material goods owned. But no. Despite these ripe pickings Anita chooses to judge the faceless occupants of this rarefied address for living "in the middle of nowhere." 

And why has Anita picked such a nonsensical thing to bitch about? Why, because the only reason she lives in a similarly out of the way area is because "I didn't want my neighbors to get shot up."

BECAUSE SHE'S A BADASS, YOU GUYS. YOU CAN TELL SHE'S THE HEROINE BECAUSE HER LIFE IS SO DANGEROUS. Except when the entire world stops so she can have unfulfilling grinding with whatever unfortunate walking penis happens to be near her at the time.

I mined all of that outrage from the first paragraph. Oh, this chapter is going to be a gem.

Anita is still so sick that she's light sensitive. Jason has to pull over at one point so she can puke. Here's a thing I don't understand (that I am sure I've bitched about a hojillion times at this point). Why don't supernaturals have their own hospitals? I mean, fine, let's say that discrimination means they're not comfortable using human oriented hospitals. But why don't Cherry and Lillian and whoever else start something? At least a clinic. There's no reason for her to be fighting through the symptoms of blood loss like this. Good lord I don't think she's even thought to have some damn orange juice and a cookie. Even the blood donation bus gives you orange juice and a cookie.

"Today all the bright greens meant that whenever my vision swirled, it did it in Technicolor green like a frog smeared across my vision..."

Never have I encountered an author with such a tin ear for language. Really? A frog? Here's one of the best pieces of writing advice I have ever received: at some point in your editing process, go through your manuscript and find every analogy and metaphor. Make sure it is neither cliche nor overly purple. Bam, your book is now a thousand times better than it was before you did this. I wonder if I can come up with anything this bad? LKH I hate your writing the way a turkey hates Thanksgiving. Okay decently bad but maybe too cogent. I hate you the way I hate cheap Maybeline eyeliner, sold by a woman who dreams of being a movie star, who will come home to a one bedroom apartment and warm Soup for One in the microwave. MY HEART IS THE MICROWAVE. IT WILL NEVER DEFROST FOR YOU LKH NO MATTER HOW MANY TIMES YOU PRESS THE START BUTTON.

Anita is sicker than she should be for some reason because Asher is a naughty boy. She takes a moment to once again tell me that everything is green, but she mercifully leaves helpless woodland creatures out of it this time.

LKH hits me with this:

"at least I'm not nauseous, anymore when I look at trees."

Okay so comma placement is often arguable and stylistic but come the fuck on. Plus goddamit woman you were sick to your stomach a sentence ago and suddenly you're not?

Anita actually cops to having sex with J.C. and Asher. Explain to me why treating Nathaniel's dick like it's going through a full service carwash isn't sex, but Asher dry humping her lady lumps is.

HOLD THE FUCK ON. HOLD ON. Anita is a federal marshal now which pfft whatever might as well give her more meaningless cool points, but she also reveals that she is paid per kill. WHAT THE FUCK. Law enforcement in this world is paid to kill people? You could argue that's technically true in the real world--U.S. police don't exactly look good at the moment, and deservedly so--but just...outright? They're paid per kill and no one sees a problem with this? FINE I mean, it could be all World of Darkness style, right? Like our world but worse? Except I don't think LKH does a good enough job establishing the world building for me to buy this. PLUS there's a GODDAMN GOOD REASON we don't put market value on say, people's organs. The fact that we have for profit prisons is already a sickening tragedy of epic proportions. To think they've basically painted a target and a dollar sign on every vampire's face MAKES ME VERY UPSET WITH THIS ENTIRE CRAPSACK WORLD.

Anita then confirms that she wants the badge so she can kill whoever she wants in whatever jurisdiction she happens to be in.

Random cop #49468349 doesn't like having Anita there because she's a "fed." This is fairly realistic, I guess, but considering every single cop she meets has it out for her in some way it's just the same fucking shit again.

Anita is wearing three inch heels. The woman couldn't get all the way here without barfing, but the first shoes she thinks to grab are three inch heels. Plus we get a stupid description of Jason that serves only to remind us that he's bandaged up thanks to Anita's convulgasm from earlier. 

You know what annoys me about Anita? Aside from everything, of course. She's so sure everyone around her gives a single shit about her sex life. She's like a teenager right now, assuming that Jason's wounds are just oh so scandalous gasp! when this random cop probably just wonders why they're both dressed like goddamn idiots. 

Anita claims that because she is a federal marshal she can enter any crime scene she wants whenever she wants. Admittedly I am no expert on the marshals but I am pretty damn sure that's not how it works. (they have an interesting history though and have been on both the side of the oppressor and the side of the oppressed at different times...well worth a read). Their job is to help the federal government, and a lot of the jobs they do aren't very glamorous and have to do with paperwork. Their main 'cool' function is to apprehend fugitives, so I have no clue what marshal status has to do with Anita's job. I am definitely not sold on this enter any crime scene I want whenever I please thing. Also DEAR GOD IN HEAVEN would SOMEONE in St. Louis law enforcement do their fucking job and set up a proper crime scene? In a proper crime scene, there are cordoned off areas for investigators to walk, there are sheets where you sign in and out, there are booties to wear and hairnets to don. You don't turn up in three inch heels with a civilian in tow and expect to tromp on through because you have some fantasy land badge that gives you carte blanche to be a ridiculous human being.

Of course I don't really think of Anita as a human being. She's more like a skinsuit being jerkily manipulated by personified neuroses. I keep expecting tentacles to come out her nose. 

This cop's name is Jenkins. Come on with that low effort bullshit. That's like named him Cop #59. 

So the way our intrepid heroine handles the fact that Jenkins doesn't want to let her in to the crime scene? She peels the bandage away to show her vampire bite. How in the fuck that is supposed to help, I have no idea. If anything, in a world where we've beaten about the head and shoulders with the notion that supernaturals are discriminated against, it should make her less trustworthy, and less likely to get a pass in to the crime scene. Of course because in Anita's world even random strangers are interested in her trashy life, this works. 

Anita knows she doesn't actually have a legal right to the scene, but she doesn't care. Best law enforcement officer ever!

THIS CHAPTER WAS ONLY THREE PAGES LONG AND I HATED EVERY SINGLE SECOND.