Even the mystery in this book is not your standard fare. It's fairly easy to guess the killer a short way into this book. But that's not important. The key is determining the underlying reasons and power struggles which lead to the murder.
Not an easy thing to do when you're dealing with the Fae.
My personal favorite part of this book has to do with Dresden's interaction with his friend and sometime partner Murphy. I won't say exactly what changes, but let's say that Harry begins to finally realize how silly he's been in his dealings with Murph and he begins to correct the situation. Hurray for character development! :)
All-in-all, a very strong installment in a very strong series.
Harry's caught in the middle in a war between vampires, wizards, and fairies that may be all his fault ... but can he stop it from getting even more out-of-hand than it already is?
If you've read the others, you know what you're in for. This is somewhat less tense, strangely, than Book 3 (other than the wonderful trial sequence at the beginning) but still a darkly comic thrill-ride of a book. Not the world's greatest literature, but unputdownable, and that's fine by me.
Note: a 3 star ranking from me is actually pretty good; I reserve 4 stars for tremendously good works, and 5 only for the rare few that are or ought to be classic; unfortunately most books published are 2 or less.
