Thursday, August 20, 2009

Fool Moon

As you can probably guess by the title, the second book in the Dresden Files deals primarily with werewolves. Again, author Jim Butcher weaves a nicely detailed tapestry of the rules of magic, in this case separating out several different types of werewolves.
There is a series of grisly murders, apparently committed by wolves that aren't quite like normal wolves. Therefore, Harry Dresden, freelance wizard and sometime helper to the Special Investigations section of the Chicago PD, gets called in to lend his professional expertise.
Despite being the only wizard listed in the Yellow Pages, Harry often has a difficult time finding employment. He seems to be living the life of a broke college student most of the time, especially when his contact in the Chicago PD, Murphy, is avoiding him. His detective work seems to be the only steady employment he has, and Murphy has trouble asking for help. She also seems to have trouble trusting anyone. Harry is burdened with many secrets of the arcane world, but Murphy can't seem to accept that, and is personally offended when he doesn't tell her all of the forbidden knowledge that he has, or when he tries to keep her in the dark to protect her. His chivalry sometimes does not go too well with her fierce independence.
Either this time Mr. Butcher cut down a bit on the hard-boiled, sarcastic comments, or I've just become more accustomed to them and didn't notice them as much. Either way, I thought that this book was a bit better than the first, though it was still rather heavy-handed with the introspection as characters tried to work through their trust issues. At one point, Harry even has a conversation with himself in a dream as a way to work through the hectic events that had happened up to that point. Call me hard to please, but that seemed a little hackneyed.

Four out of five wolves!

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