No rating until I’ve read the second part of the story.Spoiler warning! This is book 16 in a long, ongoing series. This really isn’t the place to start. Normally, I’d recommend that you start with book 1, but the first three books of The Dresden Files are pretty bad, so you’d be better off starting with book 4, Summer Knight. I highly recommend the audio books, narrated by James Marsters. They’re what finally sold me on the series.
Official book description:
When the Supernatural nations of the world meet up to negotiate an end to ongoing hostilities, Harry Dresden, Chicago’s only professional wizard, joins the White Council’s security team to make sure the talks stay civil. But can he succeed, when dark political manipulations threaten the very existence of Chicago–and all he holds dear?
It’s been six full years since Butcher published the previous Dresden Files novel, if you don’t count the short story collection Brief Cases (and I don’t). Unless you’re one of the people who still haven’t given up on George R.R. Martin or Patrick Rothfuss (which I’m honestly close to doing, just finish the books, guys), that’s a very long wait in between installments of an ongoing fantasy series.
It’s certainly long enough that I had to go online and read detailed plot summaries of the last few books in the series because I remembered only the barest hints of what happened in them. This is most definitely not the book you want to pick up if you’re a Harry Dresden newbie.
As the brief book description says, there’s going to be a big supernatural peace summit in the middle of Chicago, and Harry Dresden has been selected to be on the White Council’s security team, despite the fact that there are clearly a whole bunch of wizards who distrust him and question where his true loyalties lie. Harry doubts that the various parties meeting for the summit can ever find common ground, but he also has bigger worries to deal with, when Thomas Raith is taken down after trying to assassinate the leader of the Svartalves, causing a major supernatural diplomatic incident. Thomas’ sister Lara certainly doesn’t intend to let her brother be sentenced to death and uses favours owed to her by the Winter Court to get Harry to help her rescue him.
Full review on my blog.
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