PG's Books

Personally I think this is an improvement over the previous books. I have read people state that the series gets better after the first three books and it looks like they were right. Originally I was a bit put off by the idea that Dresden would be wallowing in guilt over Susan’s fate as well having let himself be dragged into misery as is hinted at in the book blurb. While it is true that this is how the book starts it is fairly quickly left behind when Harry gets more important things to attend to.

As with the other books the writing is good and the characters are well done. That have never really been a problem with this book series. However I am happy that Harry have become a bit more of a bad-ass. He still puts his foot in it on a fairly regular basis but in this book he also dishes out some serious pain and he does not fall over and faint or puke at the site of some murder scene any more.

In general the book is progressing at a brisk pace and I found it quite enjoyable to read. Quite a bit of the book takes place in the magical planes of the Faeries this time. The majority of the story still plays itself out out back on our normal Earth though which I find good since it keeps the Urban Fantasy aspect of the book unlike, for instance, the Iron Druid Chronicles which, in my opinion, pretty much went all overboard with whacky otherworldly realms and sacrificed the quality of the writing in favor of over-the-top (and unintelligent) effects.

The White Council is behaving as jerks as usual though which is rather annoying. Well, not all of them but enough to make it frustrating. I am indeed waiting (hoping) for a book where this utter jerk Morgan gets a good ass-whooping, or at least some humiliating moments. Unfortunately there was no real conclusion or reckoning at all between Harry and the council at the end. Given that Harry did indeed accomplish his trial I would have expected to have a few pages where the council had to suck it up but that was, sadly, left out. Apart from a few mentions there was not really much about Susan in this book either. I would have expected the book series to follow up on that but it looks like the author decided to put that part of the story pretty much aside for this book.

Anyway, bottom line for me is that it is a quite read-worthy book and the best one in the series so far.