A series of urban fantasy novels written in hard boiled
detective first person style, with Anita Blake as the narrator
and protagonist. The story takes place in the St. Louis of an
alternate reality Earth where not only do vampires,
werewolves and magic exist, but everyone knows they
exist. For example, several years before the start of the series,
the U.S. supreme court granted civil rights to vampires, and
now you need a warrant to kill them.
Anita's regular job is with Animators Inc., where she raises the
dead so customers can ask them questions: is this your real will
or is it a forgery, where did you hide the money, and so on.
Through Animators Inc. she is on retainer as a consultant for the
Preternatural Crime Task Force of the St. Louis police,
derisively known as the "Spook Squad". Lastly, Anita is
Missouri's licensed vampire killer, and has the most
legal vampire kills of any human in the U.S.; she is known
among Vampires as "The Executioner". She has an acquaintance,
Edward, who has even more, non-legal kills under his belt; the
vampires simply refer to him as "Death".