Grave Peril

By Jim Butcher

Book 3 of the Dresden Files series, this one finds Harry Dresden battling the baddies once again. Set in Chicago filled with spooks, vampires, wizards, demons, faerie, and other assorted supernatural beings, Harry is a wizard with a mission: keeping Chicago safe from those things that go bump in the night. He is ably assisted by a Knight of the Cross, Michael Carpenter, who wields a big, consecrated sword named Amoracchius.
The book starts off with Harry and Michael taking on a ghost who is stealing the life from the newborn babies in a hospital nursery. After they take care of that nasty ghost, they figure out that something or someone is riling up the spirit world and causing ghosts to become more active and much more dangerous. This person or entity is attaching a cruel, painful spell to the ghosts that pretty much drives them insane. Before long, this unknown starts to target Harry's friends and it becomes clear that someone is gunning for Harry himself and that this unknown wants Harry dead.
Harry sets forth to do battle, helped by Michael, having to fight off crazed spirits, dead wizards, vampires and his evil fairy godmother who wants to possess Harry for her own purposes. In the process, Harry pretty much gets his ass kicked.

Harry is up to his neck in trouble in this story, with his girlfriend in the hands of the vampires, his powers depleted in his battles with the enemy and with Michael having lost his holy sword due to Harry's bumbling. There is practically a battle in every chapter, described in gruesome detail, with Harry usually getting the worst of it. There are lots of interesting characters, including a talking skull that lives in Harry's lab and vampires that are really ghoulish. This is an action packed story full of creepy characters and plenty of blood and guts in which the author lives up to his name. I found the many characters interesting and the story compelling but for me, there were just too many fights and battles. Reading about people constantly getting attacked and beaten to a pulp just doesn't appeal to me. This book is plenty exciting but a little over the top for my taste. Still, if you like that sort of thing, then this book will not disappoint.

For another review see Publishers Weekly.

New Words

Margravine: the wife of a margrave, or a woman with the rank and responsibilities of a margrave, which is a lord or military governor of a frontier province in medieval Germany or the title of a prince of the Holy Roman Empire. '"The Vampire Court," Kyle said, a measured cadence to his words, "extends a formal invitation to Harry Dresden, Wizard, as the local representative of the White Council of Wizards, to attend the reception celebrating the elevation of Bianca St. Claire to the rank of Margravine of the Vampire Court, three nights hence, reception to begin at midnight."'

Sidhe: supernatural creatures of Irish and Scottish folklore, a powerful, supernatural race also called fairies. 'The sidhe lady was beautiful beyond the pale of mortals, her eyes bewitching, her mouth more tempting than the most luscious fruit.'