The Dresden Files: Skin Game by: Jim Butcher

 

Skin Game is the first installment in The Dresden Files where the series feels as if it’s taking a bit of a step back in terms of where the series has been going.  Changes, Ghost Story, and Cold Days make up a brilliant trilogy for The Dresden Files shifting the series to a larger scope and Skin Game is the immediate follow-up to that.  Now, let’s get this right out of the way, Skin Game is not bad, nor is it even in the bottom half of The Dresden Files.  It’s a book that gets a lot right and is a damned good read, but this is a book where Butcher makes a few missteps which stop this from being on the same level as what has come before.  The biggest problem with Skin Game is its length, the paperback edition I read clocks in at 600 pages and there are things that do not justify the page count.  There are lengthy sequences, especially in the first two thirds of the novel, where scenes feel artificially inflated in places and some subplots opened and closed to be plot cul-de-sacs.  There’s also this switch between who gets to be one of the major supporting characters and while it was necessary and led to some great scenes, it still felt a little clunky with Murphy essentially being written out so Michael Carpenter can take a larger role in this novel.  Again, this is still good, Michael is a great character and Skin Game brings him back really well and once the heist that’s the main thrust of the novel is supposed to be starts his presence is great.

 

Michael also is used to establish exactly what the situation with Molly has been since the end of Cold Days.  Molly as a character doesn’t appear until the very end of the novel, so the reader can only get a view of how the mantle of Winter Lady is affecting her through Michael.  The fear comes when it is revealed that he and Charity don’t even know what’s happened to their daughter which is a terrifying thought and that Molly has apparently been doing better in their eyes.  Now in Ghost Story she was essentially a serial killer, so pulling herself out of the gutter and being their for her family while providing resources for herself, something that on the outside makes her look put together and honestly she is.  The power she wields has changed her, but not necessarily for the worse, like Harry it has subtly given her control, though if that control is over her humanity and she’s remaining herself and not a monster.  Family is kind of a big theme of this novel, with Harry’s internal conflict being a lot of how he’s going to interact with this daughter who he really meets for the first time here.  The scenes between Harry and Maggie are genuinely some of the best that Butcher has written, Maggie is written really well as a young child and not just a smaller adult as other writers sometimes do, and the tension there is interesting.  There are also parallels with the Carpenter family and the big bad of the novel, Nicodemus Archleone and his daughter, whom he sacrifices near the climax to steal the Holy Grail.  Yes, this book is about a quest to steal the Holy Grail and yes Harry does make several references to Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

 

The actual heist scenario is honestly Jim Butcher flexing how well he can do character interactions between characters who genuinely hate each other.  Harry is always on the back foot through Skin Game until the big twist is revealed, so the entire team hates him as he is lashing out.  He’s only doing this because Mab ordered him to, so he has no way to wiggle out of it, though not for lack of trying.  The climax sets up several twists about what’s actually happening throughout the novel.  The heist is to steal the Holy Grail from Hades, expanding the existing pantheons and including some interesting revelations as to how death works in this universe, something that I think is meant to satisfy everyone going to the afterlife they personally believe in.  Butcher also is much more intelligent than to characterize Hades as Satan, and goes out of his way to show that this isn’t the case, even drawing on some translations of Greek phrases to set him up as a power house and a threat to the heist team, but not as an outright evil villain, that’s Nicodemus’ job.  There is also a chapter where all of the twists come into light right at the point in the novel where all hope is lost which works mostly well, the flashback is to explain how Harry wins, but it leans closely to being a bit too neat.

 

Overall, Skin Game may be a slight step down from the last few installments in The Dresden Files, though it is still great and keeping the series quality firmly in great territory.  It’s kind of a shame this one was the one that led to a slowdown in publishing as it could possibly be a stopping point, even if several things are unanswered and unresolved, but there is almost a pausing point.  Though of course it’s great that Butcher has continued with more short stories and novels to keep the series going.  8/10.