Peace Talks
is a lot. It’s the long awaited sequel
to Skin Game and was so big that Jim Butcher had to split it in two,
with Battle Ground being published only a few months after, and as the
title implies it’s all about peace talks between several factions. Butcher entrenches the book with this sense
of tension, the Fomor have been not necessarily a background threat for the
last three books, but they’ve not been Dresden’s priority and since Harry is
our point of view for the series, we don’t actually see them as often as the
influence they hold. He is also being
attacked by all sides, the White Council getting ready to strip him of his
official status of wizard and his brother, Thomas, being captured after
apparently doing a murder. Peace
Talks is a book that has so many parts to juggle and, honestly, it’s just
Act One of a clearly larger story, ending not on a cliffhanger, but a point of
tension. The ending itself is something that
while it’s clear everything is about to hit the fan, read on its own it feels
like there is a sense of completeness.
Now, I doubt Battle Ground is going to leave much of a gap in the
timeline as it’s clear that everything is about to kick off, with one of the
plotlines that drives this book forward being pinched off and put to the side
just for the moment to be dealt with in a later novel. It provides this beautifully emotional climax
to the book as everything has fallen apart and Harry realizes just how little he
actually knows about what has been happening in the wider world.
There is also this focus on the importance of family,
with Butcher really following up from “Zoo Day” in developing the relationship
between Harry and Maggie (and by extension Mouse) who are now all living
together in an apartment. Maggie being
put in danger is a point of contention and this for the first time really delves
into Harry’s own family traumas. Maggie
is still having panic attacks because of the events of Changes, but it
is not being treated by Butcher poorly like other authors might. It is something Maggie is going to have to
face every day, but Harry has been suppressing quite a bit of trauma in regards
to his childhood where both his parents died, his grandfather never revealed
himself, and he eventually had to kill his mentor (the only consistent parent
figure he had). This is something that
Butcher should have begun to do way back in Blood Rites, something that contributed
to that book being incredibly weak, the worst of The Dresden Files as a
whole. But here, Butcher has evolved as
a writer and knows just how to twist the knife to bring out Dresden’s
trauma. Thomas is in perpetual danger,
beaten and broken after murdering one of the svartalfs, though not the one he
was apparently trying to murder for reasons that aren’t revealed in this novel,
but it seems like Battle Ground might actually cover that. Harry is also confronted with Ebenezer McCoy,
not as a villain, but as suspicious of Thomas’ White Court nature, but Harry refuses
to tell his grandfather that Thomas is family and not a normal White Court
vampire. The climax with McCoy is
wonderful in and of itself because it brings everything into stark contrast.
Overall, Jim Butcher clearly is writing the first act
of something that brings The Dresden Files towards another escalation. This is a book where Mab is outmatched as the
Peace Talks find themselves unravelling very quickly with Harry
stretched too thin to do anything about it.
There is a new god in town.
Pieces are being put in place with Goodman Gray from Skin Game
being put in play to protect Justine, Butters having his role to play as a
knight (though his appearance is all too brief), Thomas completely out of play
and underneath Demonreach, and the Carpenters still none the wiser to what has
happened to their daughter. If the Sword
of Damocles was hanging before, by the end of Peace Talks it has been
cut and only falls flat since this doesn’t have an ending, just a pause in the
action. 8/10.
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