Thursday, July 24, 2014

Blood Rites, Book Six of the Dresden Files



Blood Rites
Book Six of the Dresden Files
Publisher: Penguin Books USA as Roc (2004)
Author: Jim Butcher
Genre: Fantasy, Urban
Pages: 439
Price: $9.99

HARRY DRESDEN — WIZARD
Lost Items Found. Paranormal Investigations. Consulting. Advice. Reasonable Rates. No Love Potions, Endless Purses, or Other Entertainment.

For Harry Dresden, Chicago's only professional wizard, there have been worse assignments than going undercover on the set of an adult film. Dodging flaming monkey-poo for instance. Or going toe-to-leaf with a walking plant monster. Still, there's something more troubling than usual about his newest case. The film's producer believes he's the target of a sinister entropy curse-but it's the women around him who are dying, in increasingly spectacular ways.

Harry's even more frustrated because he only got involved with this bizarre mystery as a favor to Thomas, his flirtatious, self-absorbed vampire acquaintance of dubious integrity. Thomas has a personal stake in the case Harry can't quite figure out, until his investigation leads him straight to Thomas's oversexed vampire family. Harry is about to discover that Thomas's family tree has been hiding a shocking secret: a revelation that will change Harry's life forever.

Blood Rites rejoins the reader with Harry Dresden around a year after Death Masks and Harry's life gets complicated, again. This time there's porn-stars, curses, a Black Court vampire/sorceress and statuesque White Court vampires. It's a fun book to read, action packed and exciting. It's not the best Dresden Files book, but it sets up so much that you can give it a pass. Kind of like the pre-Avengers MCU movies; fun and entertaining, but the reader can feel that much bigger things are being setup.

Without spoiling anything major we find out about Harry's mother, the infamous Margaret LeFey and one of her important dalliances. It is also revealed that some of Harry's allies are more than they seem, that one of the few people Harry has any respect for has been lying to him all along, and that Harry's capacity for taking a beating is still quite formidable.

This book is fun because there are two events that could have served as climaxes for a book, and they're both packed into one. During the first Harry suffers horribly and may be scarred for the rest of his life, yet somehow he picks himself up and engineers a dramatic shift of power inside a powerful supernatural faction. Just a normal day for Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden.

Conclusion: There's a lot in this book that a reader of the Dresden Files has to know going forward. Harry is his usual sarcastic self, usually to his own detriment. Although there are a couple of places I felt the silliness go over the top (something about a frozen turkey) it keeps a reckless pace that's sure to entertain.

Rating: 8/10

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