Death Masks (The Dresden Files, Book 5)
by Jim Butcher
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Book Reviews of Death Masks (The Dresden Files, Book 5)
Book Review: The Vampires, the Fallen and the Shroud
Summary: 5 Stars
Death Masks (2003) is the fifth urban fantasy novel in the Dresden Files series, following Summer Knight. In the previous volume, Elaine helped Harry reach the Table. The spell on Lily Unraveled. Meryl took out Talos and Toot-Toot had his pixies gang up on Aurora.
Dresden woke up in his own bed in a very clean apartment. The new Lady Summer had provided him with a Brownie cleaning crew and the new Summer Knight had fixed the Blue Beetle. Elaine kissed him on the cheek when she left.
In this novel, Harry is on the set of the Larry Fowler show, trying hard to suppress his magic. He had been trying to talk to Mortimer Lindquist and the psychic had insisted on meeting here. In a few minutes, they are going to be interviewed by Larry. Later two more mystery guests will join them.
Larry and the audience enjoy laughing at the guests's babble of seances and magic. During the break, Harry asks Mort about Susan and learns that she is definitely alive and has been in Peru. After the break, Larry introduces the other two guests. One of them is Duke Ortega of the Red Court vampires. Harry's control slips and his magical field takes down one of the TV cameras with a flash and smoke.
While the stage crew rolls off the defunct camera, Ortega tells Dresden that he has come to talk to him. Then the host conducts a little more discussion of the superstitious belief in magic. A second camera blows out and Ortega continues his conversation with Harry. He has come to face Harry in single combat. The suppression spell finally breaks down and the whole studio goes dark. Harry agrees to the challenge and then the emergency lights come on, but the fire alarms start whooping.
Outside the studio, the other mystery guest -- Father Vincent from the Vatican -- also wants to talk with Harry about a job. Father Forthill of Saint Mary of the Angels has referred him to Harry. As they walk toward the Blue Beetle, some gunman starts shooting at them with a silenced pistol.
Harry digs his shotgun out of the trunk and the gunman retreats, but still fires hid pistol in their direction. When that weapon runs out of shells, Harry hustles the priest into his car and putts out of the parking garage. On the way out, Harry notices several armed man and recognizes one as an enforcer for Johnny Marcone.
Father Vincent directs Harry to a motel near the airport and explains the case. The Shroud of Turin has been stolen and is probably in Chicago. Father Vincent wants Harry to find it.
In this story, Susan returns to Chicago with Martin, a coworker in the organization that Susan has joined. She has changed and is now strong enough to fight off a Red Court vampire. But she still has the Hunger and lusts after Harry. Of course, a really good wizard should be able to work around these difficulties.
Murphy calls and asks Harry to come to the Cook County Morgue. Murph introduces him to Waldo Butters and then they view a corpse without head or hands. The man had been found under a freeway overpass. Despite the horrible mutilations, he had apparently died of the Plague and other diseases. Harry examines the corpse more closely and finds a tattoo on the inside of the biceps.
As Harry is leaving the hospital, he encounters a bear-like thing and runs back toward down the alley. The thing chases him, but an old man steps out into its path and swings a katana at the beast. Then a young Russian joins the fray with a saber. Finally, a large man with a broadsword drops in and cuts off Ursiel's head.
Harry has been rescued by the Knights of the Cross, including his friend Michael Carpenter. The other two Knights -- Shiro Yoshimo and Sanya -- have come to Chicago to protect Harry from the Denarians, an order of Fallen Angels bound to thirty pieces of silver. The Denarians want Harry's soul and the Knights want him to drop the case to save himself.
This story takes Harry from the harbor to the downtown Marriott to Undertown to Wrigley Field to the O'Hare chapel. Then he gets to take a train ride. He finds himself fighting with vampires and the Fallen. Although the scenery is great, the creatures are really bad.
Highly recommended for Butcher fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of Fallen Angels, preternatural creatures, and a really stubborn wizard.
-Arthur W. Jordin
Book Review: Ambitious, Entertaining, Absorbing ... Uneven
Summary: 3 Stars
Harry's back on the case in the Dresden Files, Book Five. "Death Masks" brings back many familiar faces, too - good, bad, and indeterminate. Butcher has returned to a storytelling device he pulled off perfectly in "Grave Peril:" various, apparently-unrelated bits of action are tossed together early on, leaving Harry to sort them into some kind of sense throughout the rest of the book. Not so perfectly this time. And readers who especially enjoy the more arcane aspects of Harry's exploits may feel a little deprived; the magic is slow in coming and mostly low-key.There's no lack of plot material. A stolen Shroud of Turin and a challenge to a duel are the biggest pieces. Cops, corpses, demons, Knights, lover, mentor, mob, thieves, vampires, and miscellaneous other friends and foes figure in somewhere. It ought to work better.
"Masks" may be the least successful Dresden File to date. Butcher continues to expand his exploration into darker, more adult themes. Ambitious, but he doesn't handle the grimmer stuff as expertly as he manages the fun. He pulls his punches in a few key places, and he can't seem to decide which way he wants certain characters to go. Serious themes aren't as forgiving of weak writing as humor is.
The problems aren't limited to the darker plot lines. Overall, the story is just plain uneven. It isn't as cleverly plotted as "Peril." Its pace is choppy. The title itself isn't as evocative as usual. Continuity errors are up again, too. The biggest involves major déjà vu over the shroud's buyer in Chapter 27; been there, Chapter 19. Most are niggling annoyances, like the two times Harry drops his blasted - er, blasting - rod and fails to reclaim it before exiting the scene.
Broken-record time. Yes, it's fantasy, but Butcher still puts too much gratuitous strain on the willing suspension of disbelief. Especially if he wants to be taken seriously. Several characters strike random false notes (Michael laughs at that?). Events don't always ring true, either. Many clinkers are minor (Harry dances in those shoes?), but a few - like the whole river-jump-from-speeding-train bit - are pretty substantial.
On the plus side, Butcher doles out more tantalizing tidbits about Harry's past. Harry's present is finally showing long-overdue signs of more control over his power and his pocketbook. There's the usual fun sprinkling of future plot hints. And while Butcher needs to work on his command of mature themes like passion, sacrifice, obsession, and damnation, his grasp of the worlds of magic and mayhem remains as robust as ever. His humor, where appropriate, is in top form.
Death Masks has some great moments. Its mysteries aren't as well-executed as in Peril, but they're entertaining and absorbing. Butcher writes well, when he chooses. And the series' emerging dark side is not unwelcome. Mixing humor and drama is much harder than writing in either vein alone, but lends far more dimension to stories and characters; once Butcher gets the hang of it, readers will follow Harry anywhere.
Book Review: Back on track
Summary: 4 Stars
I was a bit disappointed in Summer Knight (The Dresden Files, Book 4), as it just didn't seem like an adequate follow up to the cataclysmic events of Grave Peril (The Dresden Files, Book 3). Fortunately with Death Masks Jim Butcher puts this series back on track.
Death Masks is the logical successor to Grave Peril, picking up the pieces in the aftermath of that book's events. The war between the White Council of Wizards and the Red Court of Vampires is in full swing, and may come to a conclusion when a Vampire Warlord offers to duel Harry in single combat. As if that weren't enough, the Shroud of Turin has been stolen and everyone from the mafia to fallen angels to the Knights of the Sword and of course our boy Harry are in a free-for-all to acquire it. Oh, and Susan, Harry's half-vampire beloved is back in Chicago. Just another day for everyone's favorite down on his luck wizard.
This book has a lot going for it. Fallen angels make for far more compelling villains than a bunch of faeries, and the Red Court always keep things interesting. The tension between Harry and Susan is powerful (even though I was never really convinced by their relationship), and their troubled interaction gives the book a much needed emotional core. The best part (to me anyway) is the return of Michael and the addition of two more Knights of the Sword. These characters are interesting enough that I'd almost rather read a series based on their adventures. Butcher hits just the right note with Harry's relationship to Michael, his family, and his sworn brethren, and hopefully they will continue to play an active role in Harry's future adventures.
Death Masks isn't perfect though. Like the other Dresden Files novels, its rapid-fire pace doesn't leave much room for character development. I think if Butcher devoted the word count he uses on describing everyone's clothing and food choices to more introspection and character interaction, the books would be more effective. I get it; Harry's got a cool coat. How about more of that subconscious stuff from Grave Peril? That kind of thing made Harry less of a 2-dimensional character and more like a real person.
That aside, Death Masks was a very solid entry in the Dresden Files series, second only to Grave Peril. At this point I have to take myself off the fence and declare myself a fan. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go and order Blood Rites (The Dresden Files, Book 6).
Book Review: Busy Epic
Summary: 3 Stars
This is the first Dresden Files novel I've read and finished by scratching my head. Not that it's bad, don't misunderstand me. It has all the traits I enjoy about these books, like its urgent, epic conflicts and immensely human characters. But with multiple braided plot threads, a cast of thousands, dense use of magical terminology, and plural coalescent climaxes, I just couldn't keep all the elements straight.
Don Paolo Ortega, a Red Court vampire who appeared in a cameo in Grave Peril, challenges Harry to a death duel to resolve the vampire/wizard war. But before Harry can wrap his head around that, a Vatican emissary hires him to recover the missing Shroud of Turin. It seems both Chicago's biggest gangster and a junta of demons want it for opposing purposes. Then Harry's lost love, Susan, arrives at his door, needing favors and reawakening suppressed feelings.
That's just the first few pages. It gets even bigger and more complicated than that. This story is huge, busy, and confusing. Normally I like an intricate plot, but this one is so massive that some characters don't appear for eight or ten chapters, and when they do turn up, I've forgotten who they are. This novel needs an index and a family tree to keep its many threats in line.
I fear Jim Butcher may have bitten off more than he could chew in a single novel. Of his many plot threads, only one is really put to bed by the final page (maybe two, it's unclear). The rest just trail over. And two of the climaxes feel truncated. Maybe he had to do some harsh editing to pack everything into a standard-sized commercial publisher's novel.
Don't get me wrong, there's plenty to like in this book. Many of Butcher's ensemble characters become more lucid for us. The conflicts are exciting, and are played out with the same noir mystery tension that has made Butcher justly famous. Butcher lays out many concepts that he can flesh out in later novels, without losing the momentum of this novel. Despite my problems, I will not be giving up on Jim Butcher or Harry Dresden just because of this one book.
It's just that, perhaps, Butcher might have been better served separating out some of his threads here into two novels. Then he could have paid more attention to the individual elements, given the supporting characters more room to play, and prevented me from losing track of who all the cast members are between scenes. I know massive complexity is the hallmark of good epic fantasy. But all good things have their limits.
Book Review: Reunion of the Damned
Summary: 5 Stars
Death Masks finds Harry Dresden once again up to his eyeballs in trouble. First, the high-ranking Red Court vampire Ortega reappears in Harry's life. Ortega was present when Harry started the war between the White Council of wizards and the vampires. He's returned to Chicago to force Harry into a duel, which if Harry dies will end the war, supposedly. Should Harry refuse, then all his friends and cohorts will be killed by hired guns on the vampires' behalf. As always, Harry's in a no-win situation.
Add onto this the new case he took on from a high-ranking rep from the Vatican to recover the stolen Shroud of Turin and things just keep getting better. That his long-lost love Susan returns to say goodbye and help out cannot possibly make things worse, right? Enter Michael, the Knight of the Cross from earlier in the series, along with his two fellow Knights, putting their own lives on the line to save Harry, the Shroud, and stop the Really Bad Demons (TM) who want the Shroud for their own evil designs.
Mix in Butcher's hardy doses of plot twists, betrayals, action, sex, gunplay, bloodletting, swordfighting, and magic-tossing, and you get one hell of a fun ride. At more than 350 pages, this one goes by faster than a kid's book. I sure was left wanting more and have already started in on the next in the series.
Along with more character development for all the recurring characters, we see resolution of the storylines in this one as well. We get returning villains as well as allies for our hero, with their own stories advancing as the series progresses. Harry never wins without some sacrifice, and a lot is lost in this book. While he comes out in the end (hardly a spoiler, I think, since he's the narrator, come on!), it's certainly not with a "happily ever after".
As with the prior four books in this series, we get characters that seem real, from all their misjudgments, mistakes, bad jokes, and other interactions with one another, to badly-laid plans, to well-laid plans that never get the chance to go off, we see the same frustration that we experience in life, when the unexpected crops up and shatters any preconceptions of controlling one's own fate. That Harry takes on not just his own safety and future, but also that of so many innocents at the risk of his own life, shows us a hero of the old cloth, giving everything of himself to serve good. Please pick up these books, you'll be very happy you did.