Cold Days

Now this is the Jim Butcher I like. The last outing with Harry Desden was not one I loved. Ghost Story was a good book, but not one that I found amazing, like I was expecting. The characters that I met didn't stick with me, and I felt like we had seen many of the tropes of the Dresden files before. So, with the 14th installment, my hope was to see Harry go into his new life with the same spunk that he had in his old one, while also advancing the story. This book accomplished that...for the most part.

The story begins with Harry now claimed as the Winter Knight. As he tours the world of the fae Queen Mab, his boss, gives him a job: kill Mave, her daughter. Harry is troubled by this, to say the least, simply because he doesn't know if that is even possible. So he travels to the human world to contact his friends and to try and solve this problem. While there, he finds that Deamonreach, the spirit of the island in the 12th book, is in trouble. There is more to the island than Harry previously believed, and something has gone wrong there, something that, if not corrected, could destroy all of Chicago.

This premise is something that I liked simply because we got the old gang back together. Many people seemed to change in the months that Harry had been recovering from his ‘death' and the events of the last book. Molly now has a nice apartment, and Butters has himself a girlfriend. This, along with Harry's other friends make a nice reunion, and allow us to see Harry back in the saddle, so to speak.

I also liked how we got to see more elements to characters that we already knew, such as Major General Toot-toot. We got to see another side to his people as he has to help Harry defeat an annoying, but effective enemy that is as small and quick as the Major General himself.

Sadly, there are some things that keep coming up that are starting to wear on me as a reader. One would be the constant descriptions of power. Butcher has a habit of describing things using similes, or comparing X person or thing to powerful people we already know, and the way he does it can become tiring and repetitive. This folds into the idea of Harry being the underdog in the magical community. He used to be this way, back in say book 5 or so, but now, especially after book 7, I feel like he should be kicking butt all over the place. Yet, on many occasions, Harry is the one who finds his face planted in the dirt, so to speak. This makes me wonder how Butcher could keep ratcheting up the tension, when Harry should be wiping the floor with whatever enemy he is facing. It just gets a bit unbelievable at points.

Then there is the direction of the series itself. While I like that we get to see Harry and company again, I must admit that I do not really like where this series has moved. It used to be about a hardboiled detective combing the gritty streets of Chicago, in the same vein as Sam Spade, but without the secretary. Now, however, it seems to be more exploring the mystical world of the fae, which I really am not liking as much as I thought I would. Some people may feel the same way.

Still, this was an excellent book, and a return to form for the series. I am going to gladly explore this series, most likely to the end. I give this book a four out of five.