The Dresden Files: Turn Coat by: Jim Butcher

 

Despite it taking me over six months to continue The Dresden Files, Jim Butcher’s series almost could have ended with Small Favor.  Sure, there would still have been a lot of loose threads, but it is one of the novels which felt like it could have been an ending, especially in retrospect with Turn Coat is the novel where not so much everything changes, but enough changes that it becomes clear Butcher has somewhere to go.  The twelfth book in the series is literally titled Changes but it’s Turn Coat where there is a preparation for changes that are coming.  There is an establishment of an evil counterpart to the White Council that everybody denies exists, a counter Council created at the very end by Dresden to prepare for the war, and an intentional lull in any of the magical hostilities between the various parties.  Everything in the book feels like an intentional buildup and almost a slight piece of ‘filler’ but filler that still moves the characters forward and makes the actual plot feel like there is meaning.  Turn Coat mainly means to resolve some of the tension between Harry Dresden and Morgan, the Warden who had been watching him like a hawk since the beginning of the series, only increased with Dresden taking on Molly Carpenter as an apprentice.  The inciting incident is Morgan appearing at Harry’s apartment, accused of murder due to being over the body with a knife, being shot, and asking for help.  That is the mystery at the heart of Turn Coat and as a mystery despite the length of the novel this is one of Butcher’s more focused mysteries.

 

The Dresden Files has had an issue with taking the mystery elements post-Dead Beat and letting them meander just a bit to facilitate the bigger world, but with Turn Coat what really helps is that the elements outside of the mystery are directly tied to the mystery.  Directly tying things together brings this focus to proceedings that makes the mystery work, even though this may be one of the weaker mysteries.  The reader can fairly easily tell where things will be going and who the actual perpetrator, the titular Turn Coat, will turn out to be.  There is one very good twist at the climax about how the actual murder took place and that actually takes several characters in different directions.  This is essentially a breather of a novel where we are taking the time to get into who the characters are.  Morgan especially gets time to examine exactly what makes him kick and work more than the rather two-dimensional character of earlier novels who just had a purpose to serve.  Morgan is incredibly human, motivated by a sense of justice and an adherence to laws, but still an understanding of the flaws within the laws of the Council.  He goes to Harry for help, a man who he doesn’t trust and would happily have taken down had this been the past.  His last actions of the novel are keeping a breaking of the laws secret from the Council, taking it to his grave because of the grown respect for Harry.

 

Now some of this doesn’t work perfectly, there are a few characters who don’t quite work as well, mainly due to age.  Mainly these are two of the non-white characters who feel a bit too much like Butcher is drawing on stereotypes, unintentionally, to craft characters.  It isn’t the worst it could be and is better than some of the ways at least one of these characters has been used in the past to move away from the stereotypes.  This is also a novel built around being almost a step back and breather from a lot of the larger supernatural goings on making it almost one that anyone could really be picking up as their first in the series, though I wouldn’t recommend it.  It’s intentional in bringing a lot of disparate plot threads together really well, especially involving the threads of Molly Carpenter and her temptation to use magic on other people, the werewolves who have been working as protectors and have the opportunity to grow into adults in this novel, and some minor appearances of Butters as well as Harry’s pixie army that he is the lord over.  A lot of these make the tone of Turn Coat not be so much as weird, but as having at least a little levity when things get dark.  The big magical threat at the heart of the book is a skinwalker, a creature that comes from certain Native American sources that Butcher at least attempts to make his own instead of just dragging from the spiritual beliefs of a marginalized group.  It’s a terrifying monster and used really effectively, but it still feels like it hasn’t really aged the best.

 

Overall, Turn Coat while having some flaws mainly due to the time it is being written as it’s over a decade old at this point and Butcher still can improve as an author, is yet another novel that continues the high streak of brilliance in The Dresden Files.  Things are moving into place and it immediately put me back on reading the series as I wish to continue almost immediately.  The pace is punchy and the mystery is really well written and Butcher continues to impress with how interesting all of his characters have become, despite some time jumps chronicled in short stories.  9/10.