Obsidian Butterfly is not for the faint of heart. It is graphic, very graphic. Read it understanding that it will not be filled with fluffy, happy puppies. However, it is a truly amazing use of imagination. Obsidian Butterfly is the Edward book of the Anita Blake vampire series. Its great because we get to see the character out of her comfort zone of St. Louis and away from most of the characters that we are used to seeing. Its kinda nice to see Anita Blake less politically minded and more cut throat. We see more of the development of Edward. He becomes a more well-rounded person, well as well-rounded as a sociopathic killer can become. If you know Hamilton's work you know that she is a little heavy handed with the sex scenes. It can be enough to make you blush. Obsidian Butterfly is really the book right before Anita Blake delves into that whole sexualized world pretty intensely.
The plot of the novel deals with Anita being called upon Edward to repay a favor that she owes Edward from an earlier book. Anita goes to Edward's New Mexico home to help with the books fairly standard mystery killer. She gets to leave the vampire/were-wolf love triangle behind. Which means the reader gets to leave that whole mess behind and concentrate on something new. There's an uptight cop who thinks that Anita's evil. Edward's got a family, which includes children. The way that Edward and Anita relate to the children, especially Paul, is easily the most interesting part of the novel. Pay attention to the characters that you meet in Obsidian Butterfly, most of them come back in later novels.
