Thursday, January 7, 2021

The Dresden Files: Grave Peril by: Jim Butcher

 

Just as I finish a book that doesn’t at all feel like it’s a proper sequel for a series, I start one that then hits all the right beats to be a sequel.  Grave Peril is the third novel in The Dresden Files and actually feels like the follow up to Storm Front that Fool Moon desperately wanted to be.  The book opens with Dresden investigating a ghost in Cook County Hospital with Michael Carpenter, a holy “Knight of the Cross” who wields a magic sword and essentially represents faith in the series.  Michael is a fascinating character as his faith in specifically the Christian God and the Catholic Church is a foil to the largely agnostic Harry Dresden.  Butcher tries to philosophize on the nature of religion and it’s possibility, however, it doesn’t quite work when he has created a world where religious myths do in fact exist.  Where Michael succeeds is showing the audience that it is possible to do what Harry does in fighting evil and the supernatural while having a family and Michael is an interesting character, however, his wife Charity feels like a point of putting a woman in the fridge and once she’s saved she doesn’t do much.  Charity is actually a strong character in her few early scenes in the novel, but she just sort of disappears once she is rescued to take care of her children and give birth to a son.  It’s such a shame because she is a really fun character when she’s in the book, outshining her husband in many scenes and should be the action hero.

 

Grave Peril also starts differently from the previous two installments in The Dresden Files, starting in media res instead of the formulaic opening in Harry’s office, it goes right for the action at the hospital for two chapters before flashing back.  While this makes it different from the other two books, flashing back in chapter three doesn’t actually give us a lot of context as to why Harry and Michael are at this hospital.  It does introduce a character who becomes important for the proceedings and an update on the relationship between Harry and Susan Rodriguez, however, that is also explained in dialogue which begins the theme of the power (both magical and nonmagical) of words.  Harry has this reluctance to say ‘I love you’ to Susan because he doesn’t want to make it official, although it is written as if they are already planning to be married.  Of course this is used for dramatic irony as Susan is taken away and undergoes a terrible fate at the climax of the novel.  A climax at which the power of love comes up and is a very interesting idea, though it does make bits of the climax fall apart in the end.  There are hooks left right at the end for future books, improving on Fool Moon’s issues of wrapping everything up so conclusively with plenty of teases to get readers interested in the next installment.  I believe this is because Fool Moon and Grave Peril were both published in 2001, within nine months of one another, while the fourth book, Summer Knight, would only be published a full year later.

 

The novel is one of two halves: the first half dealing with ghosts and the second half dealing with Bianca and the Red Court Vampires from Storm Front.  The ghost plot is fun, though not necessarily the most interesting story here.  It gives readers a deeper understanding of the world Butcher has created in the Nevernever and introduces us to Harry’s fairy godmother, Lea, who owns his soul.  Lea’s annoyance on Harry not following a bargain and the nature of the fae being very Celtic mythology inspired: literal, taking things very much in what the words mean.  Lea makes a great tertiary antagonist, not evil, but definitely chaotic and putting her own goals before anything else.  Lea’s story ends with Harry getting more time which is a bit of a copout, but her inclusion in the vampire plot.  There’s also the Nightmare as the villain which is eventually explained really well and the final confrontation is great, but overshadowed by the Vampire Court intrigue.  The vampire plot is Bianca being incredibly crafty to get her revenge for Harry’s attacks on her in Storm Front where we get a genuinely interesting lore dump on the three Vampire Courts and what makes them different from one another and a sympathetic-ish vampire character in Thomas and his “friend” Justine.  It is this point where the action kicks into high gear and makes Grave Peril worth it.

 

Overall, Grave Peril returns The Dresden Files to where it was with Storm Front though it is still a bit of a mess.  It is at this point where the series seems to have a goal in mind, if that goal will take a long time to come to fruition, but redeems the issues with Fool Moon.  7/10.

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