PG's Books

To me this was the best book in the series so far. Harry Dresden have matured quite a bit from the first books where he frequently came across as a wimp. In this book he has almost become “Dirty Harry” Dresden. He can still be a bit thick at times but it is no longer a question of whether or not to kick the bad elements’ behinds but rather when and how much. In this book he even goes as far as to plan to whack said bad elements in a somewhat preemptive strike. Okay Harry still gets sucker punched every so often but at least he has the initiative from time to time in this book.

Harry’s newly grown balls colors his character in more ways than his desire to eliminate threats by shooting first and I found the dialogue and Harry’s sometimes rather sharp tongue to be quite enjoyable to read. Some people complain about Harry overdoing his protectiveness towards women. Some even call it irritating and chauvinistic. I disagree completely. Actually such comments saddens me. As Harry said “feel free to call me a Neanderthal” but personally I am quite happy that the lead character exhibits some good old-fashioned moral values.

The book more or less runs two story arcs in parallel. One is mentioned in the book blurb and the other one is an old aquaintance. Normally I am not too keen on trying to squeeze in parallel story arcs but it works fairly well in this book. Both are reasonably well done and I actually quite liked the second one. Both for being a straightforward go-in-and-kick-some-behinds story and for the big-mouthed not quite human mercenary that it introduced.

One thing that I did not like was Harry’s silly behavior towards his friend and mentor after a number of truths about Harry had been revealed. The way Harry acted was not just thick, it was stupid and quite frustrating.

The book concludes both story arcs without too many loose ends although the revelations about Harry will of course stay with us for a while. On the whole I quite liked this book. As I wrote, the best book in the series so far as far as I am concerned.