Publishers Weekly
Butcher's seventh comic supernatural Dresden Files novel makes a welcome leap to hardcover (after 2004's Blood Rites). Harry Dresden, a wizard PI living in Chicago with his half-brother, who's an incubus, and his dog, Mouse, learns that his girlfriend, a Chicago police officer specializing in occult investigations, is being blackmailed by a vampire. Unfortunately, every dark-magic wielder in Chicago apparently wants the same thing as the vampire-the spells of an unpleasant necromancer, Kemmler, whom Dresden's employers, the White Council, eliminated some years earlier. With Kemmler's spells one can summon the Erlking, the leader of the Wild Hunt, and draw on his magic to achieve godlike powers-at the cost of thousands of lives. To thwart the various ghouls, sorcerers and body-stealers in their evil quest, Dresden must turn for help to a reluctantly heroic medical examiner, Waldo Butters; a pack of werewolves, the Alphas; and a fallen angel, disguised as a bookstore clerk. Horror fans with a sense of humor will be pleased. Agent, Jennifer Jackson at DMLA. (May 3) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
Practicing wizard Harry Dresden dedicates his life to protecting mortals from the unseen world of vampires, werewolves, zombies, and other supernatural creatures that inhabit present-day Chicago-and the rest of the world. When he discovers that a half dozen evil necromancers are all vying for possession of an ancient manuscript that promises to endow one of them with supreme power, Harry's life becomes a fast and furious race against time to find The Word of Kemmler before they do. With an incubus for a half-brother and a talking skull for a companion and advisor, the antiauthoritarian Harry manifests an infectious charm that will appeal to fans of Tanya Huff's "Blood" novels and readers who enjoy noir mysteries or supernatural crime series like Charlaine Harris's "Southern Vampire" series. Mixing offbeat humor, a hard-boiled style, and rich detail, Butcher's first hardcover in his "Dresden File" series (there's enough background information for new readers) deserves a spot in every library's fantasy or dark fantasy collection. Highly recommended. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Seventh installment-but first hardcover-in the Harry Dresden series: a mix of the supernatural and bounding adventure. Chicago's wizard-detective lives in a nonelectric basement apartment kept clean by faeries. Harry's roommate is his super-handsome half-brother Thomas, a vampire who specializes in feeding on beautiful women but not turning them. Both Harry and Thomas live under the aegis of the White Court, of which Harry's a high member. Black Court vampire Mavra, beheaded by Harry in a previous outing, returns here to blackmail him. She's threatening Harry's secret heartthrob, Karrin Murphy, director of the Chicago PD's Special Investigations unit, which tracks down supernatural criminals. Mavra has photos of Karrin shotgunning a bad guy; he deserved it, but it's still a felony, and she could get life-or worse, if Mavra decides to make nasty use of the lock of Karrin's golden hair she's acquired. To prevent that, she tells Harry over his empty but waiting grave in Graceland Cemetery that he'll have to find and hand over The Word of Kemmler, a spell that apparently will give Mavra top powers. In Harry's wizard lab in his cold sub-basement, a talking skull named Bob warns that Kemmler is a ferociously evil necromancer who spent more than a hundred years starting WWI and has been twice killed by the White Court. The Word of Kemmler is his fourth and possibly worst book of necromancy; it frightens even Bob. And now it's Halloween, when the barrier between this and the spirit world is weakest. Adventures blossom like shotgun fire as Harry and medical examiner Waldo Butters are attacked in the morgue by a walking dead cop with his throat slit, flanked by zombies, and Harry faces all mannerof cold, palely glowing folk walking about Chicago as a Tyrannosaurus tosses the undead over five-story buildings in a "carnivorous earthquake." A fun-loaded series.
