White Knight, Book Nine of the Dresden Files

White Knight

Book Nine of the Dresden Files

Publisher: Penguin Books USA as Roc (2007)

Author: Jim Butcher

Genre: Fantasy, Urban

Pages: 526

Price: $9.99

In Chicago, someone is targeting magic practitioners--the members of the supernatural underclass who don't possess enough power to become full-fledged wizards. Some have vanished. Others appear to be victims of suicide. But now the culprit has left a calling card at one of the crime scenes--a message for Harry Dresden.

Harry sets out to find the killer, but his investigation turns up evidence pointing to the one suspect he cannot possibly believe guilty: his half brother, Thomas. To clear his brother's name, Harry rushes into a supernatural power struggle that renders him outnumbered, outclassed, and dangerously susceptible to temptation.

And Harry knows that if he screws this one up, people will die--and one of them will be his brother...

Mr. Butcher does a great job of writing an entertaining book. One that builds on existing characters and factions in the Dresden-verse, moves the over-arcing story forward without feeling like an information dump, and brings out several different emotions in the reader. There are times when Harry's life is funny, painful and sad; because when you take out the supernatural elements, it's the life of a regular guy, with regular problems.

Those mundane problems, such as distrust, feelings of inadequacy and wanting something he just can't have, all conspire to make this one of Harry's most challenging cases. One of the challenges is evident when looking at the number of players in the game. The magnitude of the problems that come our hero's way is growing, and with that increase in scale comes an expansion of the involved parties. Besides the usual close friends, Harry must contend with a crimeboss and multiple White Court families, not to mention the unseen puppet master orchestrating some of the recent troubles in Dresden's life.

Sound confusing? It should seem that way, but it's not. Jim Butcher keeps his usual high pace method of story telling, but doles the facts out in such a way that the reader always has time to digest one before being hit with the next. As Dresden further inserts himself in the politics of the supernatural world this will become an important trait, as the revelations look to be increasing in importance and scope.

Conclusion: This is one of my favorite books in the series thus far. The story shows the reader that Harry's decisions are likely to have far-reaching consequences going forward, and leaves us feeling as though Harry's sometimes cavalier attitude is going to land him in a situation he's not ready to handle. And so with dread and excited anticipation the reader awaits the next book, just wondering, is this the time Harry is just a tad too slow, or not quite clever enough to prevail? He can't keep walking that knife's edge forever, can he?

Rating: 8.75/10