Grave Peril

WHAT
All the annoyances from the previous books magnified. Harry is a whinny self righteous wannabe hero that blames himself for every trouble in this all too black and white world. The plot starts as passable, progresses into bearable and ends in an insufferable amount of cliches worthy of cheap novels.

TLDR
- nothing stands out: characters are dull, story forgettable
- deux ex machina situations where a “demon” shows up to grant him power when needed
- every magic performed seems to cost a kidney. He seems to have a ton of those somehow.
- hero always weak or without power, yet...
- the power of love will help you through!
- no intelligent plans to overcome challenges
- over confident villain underestimates the hero, sigh!
- self pity hero, blame himself for all the problems of the world
- black/white morality. All the antagonists are clearly evil. Period.

PLOT
Something is stirring the ghosts in the city into attacking the living. Harry and his friend Michael, a Knight of the Cross, must put them to rest and find out who or what is behind this.

ANALYSIS
I wanted to like this book. The main character is likeable enough for me to overlook a few flaws with the story. But the things I saw as a problem in the first books seems to take a primary seat in this novel, and if it is as the author says that “most readers consider this and the next book the best ones”, the series is taking a shape I do not enjoy.

The story started slow and with very few characters, unlike the previous ones. Michael is very plain, a typical do good warrior that didn't stand out in the story. Murphy and Susan just make brief appearances in the beginning.

Harry is constantly drained out of his powers (at one point in the story, literally). He has never time to rest and is always operating at a half or less capacity. Yet, he keeps performing his magic by:

- drawing energy from his emotions. So, with the power of love, he defeated the bad guys.
- making bargains with an evil Faerie. She is made out to be this super villain, but it is very easy to trick her apparently. She keeps granting Harry power by making him do unreasonable promises that she should know he would not fulfill. Also she always shows when Harry needs her.

His constant state of weariness makes for very improbable scenes, where faced with VERY improbable odds, he succeeds. Situations where even with his full power he would not have been able to come out alive, yet here he makes it through and is ready for the next challenge. And again, he throws himself into danger without the faintest trace of a plan. “I'll just show up and if I REALLY, REALLY want it, my magic will destroy my enemies apart”. The same goes for Michael.

The vampire gathering scene was the worst part of the book. It abused the “sexy vampire seductress” cliche, it introduced another character that felt flat and uninteresting, all the improbable feats of magic and unplanned victories happened here and also the villain revealed his masterful plan. This is how I paraphrase the climax of the story, it should be clear why after this was revealed, I had a hard time following through with my reading and also decided to stop reading the other books in the series:

"You prevented me from killing you before. That made me mad, and because of that I'm going to kill you now. Bu I cannot attack you first, because that will be breaking the rules. So, I'm going to butcher a few people at my place, and If you try to stop me, you'll be breaking the rules yourself, and your life is forfeit."

HA! I bet you did not believe that the hero would fall for that! There is also a scene where a vampire keeps gloating as how she is the most powerful vampire of the clan, knows everything about Harry, have developed magic of her own and when she goes on to attack him, surprise! A cross repels her.

On the positive side, I could see the ideas the author was trying to convey, and they were somehow acceptable, even if not delivered very well. I like the underdog hero succeeding against overwhelming odds, finding strength in his convictions and the love of his girlfriend, being willing to sacrifice everything for doing the right thing.

Stakes are higher on this book. Innocent people die, more than I've seen in previous books. Overly powerful ghost demons, sorcerers, and vampires. We learn there are 3 types of vampires in this world and what are their differences. They ended up being way more powerful than I thought. Harry Dresden also shows some wicked powers. It's pure action fun, with supernatural stuff going on.

Book three, and I'm still enjoying the re-read of the series. I will admit to pausing mid-book to read the latest in another sequence by a different author, but I think that was because I had remembered how dark this one gets, and I wasn't ready for it. I did return and finish, though, and I'm very glad, as I had forgotten some vital details.

On to number four!