Look, I need to be upfront about something: I came into Hit List knowing this is book twenty in the Anita Blake series, and I've been riding this train long enough to know it jumped the tracks somewhere around Narcissus in Chains. The series that once gave us a necromancer who solved crimes and cracked wise has become... something else entirely. But Hit List? This one actually remembers what made Anita Blake dangerous in the first place — and I don't mean in the bedroom.
I listened to this at the library after hours. Closing shift, just me and the fluorescent hum of the back office, shelving returns while Kimberly Alexis narrated a weretiger getting hunted through the Pacific Northwest. The timing was almost too good. Small-town Oregon library, empty stacks, a story set in my own corner of the world. Shirley (my cat) wasn't there to be unimpressed, but I'm pretty sure if she had been, she would've knocked something off a shelf right at the worst possible moment.
The Harlequin Problem (Or: Villains You're Not Allowed to Name)
The concept here is genuinely creepy — The Harlequin are the bogeymen of the vampire world, so feared that even saying their name can get you killed. This understands that horror isn't about gore — it's about dread. Hamilton leans into the idea that the most terrifying threat is the one everyone's too afraid to acknowledge, and for the first half, it works. The serial killings feel like breadcrumbs leading Anita into a trap she can see but can't avoid. Edward — the sociopath U.S. Marshal who is hands-down the best character Hamilton has ever written — is back, and his dynamic with Anita carries this book harder than any romantic subplot ever could. That kind of cold, professional-killer energy paired with genuine narrative tension is something I chased recently in Star Wars Legends: Allegiance, which does something similar with a morally complicated soldier who keeps outrunning the label of hero.
But here's the thing: the pacing stumbles in the middle third. There's a stretch where the plot stalls out for relationship negotiations and metaphysical power discussions that feel transplanted from one of the weaker entries. At nine hours, this isn't a massive commitment, but those detours make it feel longer than it should. When the book is moving — when Anita and Edward are hunting, strategizing, being professional killers who happen to have badges — it's sharp. When it stops to remind you about Anita's ever-expanding supernatural harem? Less so.
Kimberly Alexis Knows Who Anita Blake Is
The narrator commits. That's rare. Alexis has been voicing Anita for enough of this series that she doesn't just read the character — she inhabits her. There's a sarcastic edge to Anita's internal monologue that Alexis nails with this dry, slightly exhausted delivery, like someone who's seen too much weird stuff to be shocked but is still annoyed by it. It's pitch-perfect.
What impressed me most: her differentiation between similar male characters. Jean-Claude gets this smooth, slightly theatrical quality — you can hear the centuries of vampire politics in how he speaks. Edward is clipped, controlled, almost clinical. These are characters who could easily blur together in a single-narrator performance, but Alexis keeps them distinct without resorting to cartoonish accents. No forced twang, no over-the-top French affectation. Just subtle shifts in cadence and tone that tell you immediately who's talking.
Her comedic timing on Anita's snarkier lines genuinely made me laugh out loud in the empty library more than once. (I checked the cameras later. I looked insane.)
Who Needs This and Who Should Walk Away
If you've been with the Anita Blake series and you've been starving for a return to the action-horror roots — this is closer to that than most of the recent entries. It's not Guilty Pleasures or Obsidian Butterfly. But it's trying. Edward's presence alone elevates it, and the Harlequin threat gives it genuine stakes.
If you've never read Anita Blake, do NOT start here. Book twenty is not your on-ramp. Go back to the beginning. And if you're someone who dropped the series because it became more paranormal erotica than paranormal thriller — this one pulls back on that, though it doesn't abandon it entirely. Fair warning: there's still sexual content, but the plot-to-spice ratio tilts back toward plot.
If you scare easily, skip. If you don't — well, this won't exactly terrify you, but the Harlequin concept scratches that itch for institutional dread, the kind where the system itself is the monster.
My Podcast Listeners Are Going to Have Opinions
Finally, horror that respects the genre — at least more than this series has in a while. Hit List is Hamilton remembering she can write a damn thriller when she wants to. It's not perfect. The middle sags, and twenty books of accumulated mythology means there's baggage everywhere. But Alexis's performance keeps you locked in, and the Edward-Anita partnership is genuinely one of the best dynamics in urban fantasy. I listened in the dark on the drive home after my shift. Mistake? Maybe. Worth it? Absolutely. This is a three-and-a-half-star book elevated to a four-star listen by a narrator who refuses to phone it in.
