Please welcome another new voice to Bookgeeks – Erin Britton kicks off with the latest adventures of a well-known wizard called Harry. No, not that Harry…

Turn Coat is the eleventh book in Jim Butcher’s hard-boiled fantasy series following Harry Dresden, the only professional wizard to be listed in the Chicago phonebook, as he attempts to maintain the balance of power between the various competing superturnnatural factions and the mortal world and to earn a decent living while doing it.

Things have been going well lately for Harry Dresden, suspiciously well in fact, so that even his stubbornly optimistic self has to admit that there must be something amiss somewhere. This time the inevitable obstacle to Dresden living a quiet life arrives in the form of White Council Warden Morgan, the same Warden Morgan who has been persecuting Harry for his entire adult life, who turns up beaten and bloodied on Dresden’s doorstep and asks for refuge. After going to bed two days previously, Morgan awoke to find himself standing over the corpse of Senior White Council Wizard Aleron LaFortier, murder weapon in hand, with a whole host of circumstantial evidence pointing to his being the guilty party. The rest of the White Council Wardens are now on Morgan’s trail and they only deal in one kind of punishment – a swift trial and then an even swifter execution. While Dresden has no problem believing Morgan to be a zealot and a jerk, he is far from convinced that his nemesis is a murderer and so agrees to help Morgan by unmasking the real killer before heads, quite literally, roll.

Investigations never proceed smoothly for Harry Dresden and the events of Turn Coat prove no exception. Not only does Dresden have to deal with keeping Morgan hidden from the White Council and discover the identity of the real murderer, he also has to cope with bounty hunters from the NeverNever, a seemingly unstoppable ancient Navajo skinwalker, vengeful vampires of the White Court, an apprentice who hasn’t quite managed to control her use of Black Magic, and the inevitable questions about his own loyalty to the Council. All in all, a depressingly typical day at the office for Harry Dresden.

Turn Coat is an excellent addition to this wonderfully noir urban fantasy series. The plot is certainly more expansive than those of some of the recent Dresden tales with plenty of twists, turns and blind alleys to keep even long-term fans of the series guessing. Added to this, there is some much appreciated back-story concerning Dresden’s capricious mother and the organisation of the White Council itself, as well a giant leap forward in the plot arc involving the Black Council. Nearly all of the regular characters who inhabit the Dresden Files are present in Turn Coat, only the faerie Queens, the Knights of the Cross and a more lengthy appearance from Bob the Skull are missing, and there are several new ones introduced too, but the story never feels cluttered – every one of Jim Butcher’s creations has their place and they are perfectly suited to their particular role.

A delightful combination of magic, action, tragedy, wit and pop culture references, Turn Coat is a compulsive novel that leaves the reader desperate to find out what lies in store next for Harry Dresden and his paranormal friends and foes.

Bookmark to