The Griffin or the Agate

One of the great perks of this job is that certain publishing houses, clearly those with foresight and vision, send us books to review. To a reading addict such as myself it's like having an unlimited line of credit with a dealer of the literary version of heroin. At irregular intervals the smiling Fed Ex delivery people show up and hand us little brown packages of happiness. Sometimes we get books we can't review - science fiction - but that doesn't mean that they go unread. Here at the Griffin or the Agate we can never have too many books. Trust me. Publishers, keep sending them. We can never have too many pages.
     That being said, as soon as I learned there was a new Harry Dresden book I was at the store with my money out (okay, ordering it online with a credit card, but you get the idea). That's how good this series has been.
     Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden doesn't get caught in tepid showers or gentle rains; no, the Chicago-based wizard is usually standing right in the center of the monsoon, the target of the downpour, the schlep in the deluge. The events in Death Masks hold true to form as Harry finds himself with a host of unusual problems to deal with. A champion of the vampiric Red Court, currently at war with the White Council of Wizards and using Harry as a scapegoat, blows into town and issues a to-the-death challenge. Hit men working for a Chicago gangster decide Harry looks like he could use a little extra lead in his diet. A torso turns up in the city morgue - the owner of which died from just about every disease imaginable all at once - before someone started lopping off limbs. Evil creatures known as Denarians want to use him to make some wizard kibble. A strange priest wants Harry to recover a minor religious artifact - just your everyday, run-of-the-mill Shroud of Turin.
     And to top off that heady mix, Harry's got girl problems - except this girl might or might not be a vampire and Harry's not sure if she wants to warm up his blood or drink it. In the previous books Butcher proved adept at keeping the action racing along at a breakneck pace and Death Masks is no exception. Battered, beleaguered, and bothered, Harry careens along from one frying pan to another, clinging to his stubborn tenacity and wry sense of humor. Butcher continues to add depth to Harry's persona with each text, managing to keep his character likable but not sugarcoating his flaws. With a strong supporting cast of unique allies (like Bob the Skull and Karrin Murphy, a cop who knows way too much about the world Harry inhabits) and a pantheon of foes that are far more than paper-thin, cookie-cutter patsies for the hero to roll over, Death Masks continues Butcher's trend of writing progressively more impressive tales. And with a few pages of a teaser chapter tacked on to the end indicating another book is on the horizon, it looks like I'd better start saving up my nickels again. This is, hands down, one of the best fantasy series currently out there, and it's never to late to dig in.   §

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