Cerulean Sins--Chapter 35

 So. Last chapter ABSOLUTELY FUCK ALL HAPPENED. How does this chapter start?

THEY’D ONLY BEEN following me for one day, as far as I knew, so why such determination to find out why? One: It’s usually better to know than not to know when people are following you, and two: I was in a truly foul mood.

With Laurel K. Hamilton's subconscious telling her that her writing sucks.Why do I say this? If a character is justifying their moves to themselves ONSCREEN? This is your brain's way of shooting off road flares and screaming HEY STUPID THE ROAD UP HERE IS OUT. Anita does not have to justify squishing unknown stalkers to me. If she feels she does, that means she knows there's something wrong with her next move.

Also: she's committing violence because she's in a bad mood. What?

And then she goes off on how she doesn't know what to do about Asher. Uh, Anita? Stalkers? Car crash? Girl bonding? Can we forget about your love life for a few paragraphs and focus on the fake car crash you're about to do?

And speaking of that, somehow this now involves road blocks and professional drivers, which somehow qualifies Claudia and disqualifies Anita without any more information than "Anita can't drive" being provided. Whatever. Car crash happens, Anita has guilt trip, Bad guys start car and drive off BECAUSE:

They must have smelled a  .  .  . rat.

Dear Laurel K. Hamilton:

Also: Sookie Stackhouse is a flaming idiot, but at least Charlene Harris explains why her vampires like puns.

So basically they just wrecked a couple cars for absolutely nothing and could have gone charging out with the guns anyway. Which is exactly what they do, and it is less badly described and more "not described at all".

Laurel K. Hamilton. Cannot figure out how to summerize her main character walking from one side of the room to the other. Summerizes the first action scene to not involve sex since this book began.

I hate this book.

Anita tries to bad-ass the strangers into submission, and decides that the fact that they won't put their hands up means that backup is on its way. Okay, fair enough. As long as you don't summerize that fight scene we'll be okay. Except the fight scene doesn't happen, the guys finally put their hands up, and we get a play by play explination of how to roll down a manual window.

Because we absolutely needed to know this.

So Anita lets them know that she spotted her, and they let her know that they know that somebody in her car turned furry (how? I mean, they were swerving all over the road, but that was less because of fur and more because of Anita's libido)

Also: Laurel K. Hamilton believes that only Americans can swear. I. Shit. You. Not:

The blond said, “yes,” the other one said, “Crystal fucking clear.” Oh, yeah, he was American, only we have that poetic turn of phrase.

And then finally, finally, FINALLY, AFTER TWO FUCKING BOOKS WORTH OF NONSENSE, we get a taste of the old Anita. Somebody (probably these dude's backup) calls the cops who come, sirens blazing. Everybody curses, the foul mouthed American says "If you put your guns away we'll all pretend this never happened" and Anita rediscovers what a backbone is:

I smiled back, and his smile wilted because I looked too damned pleased. I wasn’t smooth at digging my badge out of my pocket yet, not one-handed anyway, but I managed. I flashed the metallic star in its little case. “Federal marshal, asshole. Keep your hands where we can see them until the nice policemen arrive.”

You're probably misusing that thing, Anita, but Haymitch still approves.

The cops arrive and are being uber careful. Given that LKH has Anita at almost-more-famous-than-Elvis status and EVERY cop in St. Louis has to know who she is, if for no other reason than to hide the evidence collecting kits, I have no idea why it takes a lot of screaming from Anita to get the cops to stop trying to take guns away from everybody, or why the first responders to the Circus do not by default include Zerbowski, but it happens. Anita gloats over the guys in the car, who look very very Humble Tigger at the moment, and the chapter ends with Anita being smug.

Well. Something kind of happened this chapter, if you squint at it side--

---wait.

Was that the doorbell? Is that the mail?

 Oh my goodness. It is the mail. And a package. Just for me.  I wonder what this could be?

Yep. See you tomorrow, kids.