Death Masks
Jim Butcher
Roc, 371 pages
Order this book Harry Dresden, Chicago’s only practicing professional wizard, returns in this fifth installment of the popular series.
As usual, Harry’s in trouble. The war between the White Council of Wizards
and the Red Court of Vampires, which Harry accidentally precipitated in Book
3, is still claiming casualties. Now Harry’s been approached by Paolo Ortega,
a Duke of the Red Court, with a challenge to settle matters in single combat.
If Ortega wins, the Red Court will accept peace overtures from the White
Council. If Harry wins, the city of Chicago will become neutral ground. It’s
an offer Harry can’t refuse--mainly because if he says no, Ortega will kill
all his friends and associates.
Harry’s also just been hired for an investigation--by the Catholic Church,
no less. The Shroud of Turin has gone missing, and the thieves have been
traced to Chicago. As if things weren’t complicated enough, Harry’s former
lover Susan--bitten some time ago by a vampire of the Red Court, though she
hasn’t fully made the transition--has suddenly turned up. Susan, who’s still
struggling with the dark urges of her part-vampiric nature, says she’s only
back to tie up a few loose ends, but Harry has a feeling there’s more to
it than that.
Then a body is discovered, its flesh shredded and its head and hands missing,
and Harry is attacked by a terrifying demon, which--he learns from the three
Knights of the Cross who miraculously show up to help him fight it off--is
actually a Fallen angel, part of the terrifying Order of the Blackened Denarius.
He’s also being followed, for reasons unknown, by hitmen working for Chicago’s
notorious gang boss, Gentleman Johnny Marcone. And then there’s the prophecy
he’s just learned about: if he continues to seek the Shroud, he’ll die, but
if he doesn’t, everyone else will. It’s the kind of high-stakes catch-22
with which Harry is all too familiar. This time around, though, there’s more
involved than fighting off the supernatural bad guys. The Denarians have
something to offer Harry--an offer that calls frighteningly to the darkness
in his own nature.
Butcher is going from strength to strength in this excellent series. Death Masks
is his most assured book yet, a smooth melding of inventive storylines, dark
supernatural themes, edge-of-your-seat adventure, strong characterizations,
and irreverent humor.
In the past, Harry has sometimes been put through the
ringer a little too energetically, like those heroes in action films who
get beaten to a pulp yet can still run five miles through the jungle with
the heroine on their back; and his rebellious nature has occasionally crossed
the line into gratuitous wiseassery (I wanted to smack him in Book 4, where
he knows he’s in deep crap with the White Council but still goes to their
meeting in a bathrobe). But in Death Masks the balance is perfect.
Everything flows, even the over-the-top movie-style action scene at the finish.
Part of the reason it all works so well is the deft way Butcher mixes the frenetic action with
quieter, more contemplative moments, never forgetting his characters’ more
vulnerable and human sides (even when they aren’t human). In between the
kickass adventure and supernatural fireworks, there’s some pretty serious
stuff about loyalty, love, faith, and loss.
While all the Dresden Files books work well as standalones,
so that it’s possible to pick up the series with any of the volumes, it’s
clear that a larger story is developing. There’s the ongoing war between
the vampires and the wizards (some hitherto unknown aspects of which are
revealed by the duel with Ortega), Harry’s bittersweet relationship with
Susan, the unclaimed sword of a dead Knight of the Cross, and an interesting
hint about Harry’s mother (could it be that Harry was not, as he has always
believed, an only child?). There’s also that dark offer Harry receives from
the scariest of the Denarians. At book’s end, he buries it (literally), but
I suspect that in future installments it will return to haunt him. I can't wait to find out how.
Copyright © 2003 Victoria Strauss
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