Grave Peril (The Dresden Files) [Hardcover]

(After Storm Front and Fool Moon)
Harry Dresden wizard PI (paranormal investigations) is back again. I do feel that to get the most out of the book you need to have read the previous 2 books.

This book has the most complex story so far, Harry is now seeing Susan Rodriguez who has an interest in Harry's invite to a vampire party to celebrate Bianca's (a vampire met in book 1) promotion.
Meanwhile Harry with the help of his sword wielding very Christian friend Michael is trying to find out who is stirring up and torturing the ghosts in Chicago, plus there is something attacking humans that are close to Harry.
Harry's faerie godmother puts her oar in just to complicate things further.
We also learn a lot more about the different paranormal groups in Harry's world.
As usual there is the odd bit of humour dropped in to lighten the load my favourite is Harry's costume when he goes to the vampires costume party.

The more I read of Harry the more he strikes me as being like Jim Rockford in the TV Rockford files but in a paranormal setting (poor, beaten up, sucker for the damsel, has a love/hate relationship with a particular cop etc).

A complex and serious detective story just set in a paranormal world

Harry Dresden and his friend Michael, a true Knight of the Cross race across Chicago to save the lives of scores of newborn babies about to be murdered by a ghost as powerful as any they've ever seen. A momentary glimpse into the true spirit of the haunt shows them that the ghost is being tortured. A spiritual barbed wire is ripping and gouging into ghostly flesh causing pain and madness in the spirit world. The wall between real life and the Never-never is getting thinner while demons and ghosts are getting stronger. Harry has to, once again, put life and soul at risk to save the people he cares about as someone, or something, somewhere, targets everyone he loves.

Friends on the police department are behaving oddly towards our wizard and even as they call him for help, they exclude him from vital information he needs to solve the case. What's a wizard to do, but try to make a deal with a Fairy Godmother who wants to, not only separate him from the woman he loves, but wants to turn him into a great big doggie as well.

Jim Butcher once again captures us with his wry sense of humor and tugs our heart strings with his characters. The action packed adventure keeps your attention and suprises lurk in the corners with the monsters. Grave Peril can stand alone, but if you've not yet read the first two books in the Dresden Files, Don't miss out, get all three. Congratulations Mr. Butcher, you've done it again.

Harry Dresden's faced some pretty terrifying foes during his career. Giant scorpions. Oversexed vampires. Psychotic werewolves. It comes with the territory when you're the only professional wizard in the Chicago area phone book. But in all Harry's years of supernatural sleuthing, he's never faced anything like this: the spirit world's gone loco. All over Chicago, ghosts are causing trouble - and not just of the door-slamming, boo-shouting variety. These ghosts are tormented, violent, and deadly. Someone - or something - is purposely stirring them up to wreak unearthly havoc. But why? And why do so many of the victims have ties to Harry? If Harry doesn't figure it out soon, he could wind up a ghost himself...

I was rather partial to the second book (Fool Moon) in the Dresden series, and started this novel with great eagerness, but found myself somewhat underwhelmed. I think this was for a number of reasons, which I shall endeavour to explain below.

The first reason is no doubt the hype and expectation. Everyone I know universally loves this series (in fact, I genuinely don't know a single person who has found it boring or insipid - a danger with a lot of urban fantasy) and states categorically that each book improves on the last. Because I loved Fool Moon, I was expecting Grave Peril to blow me away - but it didn't.

The second reason is no real fault of the book or the author, but I feel it bears mentioning. When you join a long-running series so late, and there are so many books ahead of you, there is no real tension about whether the hero will live or die. Sure, the peripheral figures might be in some danger (depending on the author - some never kill of any people, despite an ever-expanding cast; LKH, I'm looking at you!) but your main dude isn't going to die, no matter what gets thrown at him. So, despite ever-escalating levels of danger in this novel, I felt comfortable that Harry would survive.

My third reason is a matter of writing: after three books, I can confidently state that I don't like the pacing that Jim Butcher employs. For the first hundred and fifty pages of each book, I've found it very easy to put them aside. The last hundred pages is usually barn-storming, tension-filled and extremely gripping - so I guess they all finish with a bang! - but I wouldn't mind a more evenly-spread level of excitement.

Reason the fourth: bloody vampire politics. I am so sick of vampire courts, with back-stabbing and covenants and home advantage and things like that. They pop up all over the place in urban fantasy, and seem so generic. Although Butcher's vampires present a couple of surprises (in appearance, mostly), in other areas they are tiresomely generic. Which is quite unlike the werewolves from the previous book, which felt quite refreshing to me.

Lastly, I didn't like Dresden's faerie godmother. I think the fae in the Dresden series have the potential to be chilling and unique, but I don't feel they're well represented by Lea. The reason I didn't like her is the way she popped up in a "plot device" moment usually. She felt tacked onto the main thrust of the storyline.

This is all making it sound as though I have nothing but gripes - but I did enjoy the book! Just not as much as the previous book!

The main reason for enjoying this book and loving the series as a whole is Harry Dresden. In Grave Peril Harry gains a lot more emotional depth and throws around some bad ass magic. His sense of honour and inability to leave a woman in peril is a facet of his character that I adore, no matter how chauvinistic it may appear. It sort of reminds me of Marty McFly in Back to the Future who is unable to be called 'chicken' without taking a person up on a stupid challenge!

" 'For the sake of one soul. For one loved one. For one life.' I called power into my blasting rod, and its tip glowed incandescent white. 'The way I see it, there's nothing else worth fighting a war for.' "

His resigned sense of humour when it comes to landing himself in dangerous situations is alive and well in Grave Peril as well, and some of his dialogue with both friends and enemies fairly snaps along:

" 'Hell's bells, Kravos,' I muttered, sitting up again. 'Do they produce a Cliched Lines Textbook for Villains or something? Go for broke. Tell me that since you're going to kill me anyway, you might as well reveal your secret plan.' "

Since we're talking about characters, Butcher introduced some really vibrant new cast members this time around. Michael, in particular, is a very powerful character - providing morality and an abiding faith to Harry over the course of Grave Peril. His quiet gravity and admonitions towards Harry for his swearing lend a calm centre to this novel that I felt was missing in prior instalments. I also *loved* Ferrovax - I demand to see more of this Dragon. His brief appearance in Grave Peril lit up the pages.

Another part of the novel I really liked were the references to the fact that life continued in between the end of Fool Moon and the start of Grave Peril - in other long running series you feel as though the characters are frozen in time until you return to their universe. Here we are aware that Harry has taken a number of jobs and his relationship with Susan has deepened - and it all happened off-screen, as it were.

In conclusion, this was not the strongest novel in the Dresden series for me and I am hoping for better from the next. Harry Dresden is still entertaining and I adore the little details of the world that Butcher is weaving into the tales; even though I was slightly disappointed with Grave Peril, I would still be happy to recommend the Dresden series.