Turn Coat by Jim Butcher
The…11th? (10th? 12th? I can’t keep track) Dresden Files features the resident (or at least, original) persecutor/wizard-parole-officer/pain in the butt, Morgan, coming to Harry for help after Morgan is accused of murdering a fellow member of the White Council. Morgan, having spent years longing to cut off Harry’s head, figures Harry is the best person to go to for someone to understand what it’s like to have people wanting to kill you for a crime you didn’t get. Harry being Harry, and so living to annoy people, agrees. He’s weird that way.
This book pretty heavily featured a lot of my favorite supporting cast members-Lara, Thomas, Molly, the werewolves, Morgan (Yes, I like Morgan. I even liked Morgan when the extent of his characterization was his near irrational hatred of Harry and desire to cut off Harry’s head. Err…I like cranky old swordsmen? I also like Susan, which is an even less popular opinion.)-and set up some interesting potential for future books, but also had a couple things that really bugged me.
Murphy and Thomas didn’t get a lot of pagetime (there was a heavy plot focus on Thomas, but he wasn’t actually in it much) but what there was was rather choice. I’m not sure about Thomas going back to being evil, even if it wasn’t by choice. I liked Thomas when he was the evil playboy who apparently helped Harry out sometimes just for kicks, but I much prefer the slightly-broken super-angsty monster-trying-to-be-good Thomas. Even though both are pretty much the anti-thesis of what I usually like. But I guess maybe he’ll be the tragically evil super-angsty totally-broken monnster-who-wants-to-be-good-but-doesn’t-want-to-be-good.
However, if he somehow ends up being “saved,” I hope it’s Justine and not Harry who saves him. Because, you know, I was exceptionally irritated by how she was basically fridged to set Thomas on the “right” path, but then happy when Butcher basically went “Oh, but she totally mostly recovered and is now a kinda secret agent working for Lara and sometimes engaging in angsty-not-touching-because-a-good-makeout-would-kill-the-boy embracing with Thomas.” And sometimes, they get together and torture vampires who threaten to rape and kill her to get to Thomas.
But, basically, let what counts as the damsel in distress on her man’s pedestal for this series do the saving, ok? My whims must be obeyed.
But you know, the scene with Harry and Thomas at the end, where Thomas asks Harry what he sees when he looks at all the women around and Harry comes up with all these stories that make them nice and sympathetic until proven otherwise, and all Thomas sees is food may contribute to why I like Thomas (and Butcher’s vampires in general) when I normally wouldn’t. Because even when they’re interesting and/or sympathetic, they’re still monsters. They aren’t the romantic Other. They’re attractive to draw in prey, but it’s just a civilized veneer to hide the monster underneath.
And I kind of loved how Harry kept coming home and Mouse was stopping Morgan and Molly from killing each other. Actually, I would have loved to see what Molly and Morgan were up to while Harry was gone.
But then there’s the stuff with Luccio. I was really put off by how her affair with Harry began because it was a superior making heavy come ons to a subordinate, but I’m even less thrilled with how it turned out. The villain was pretty easy to figure out, and as soon as Molly started talking about minds being tampered with, it was easy to figure out that Luccio had been manipulated, but I don’t like how her relationship with Harry was almost entirely a product of the tampering. I mean, her mind was altered so that she would have a sexual relationship with Harry so Prescott could get information. Which basically means she was incapable of consent and was forced to have sex with Harry, something she never would have done when in control of her own actions. Which, you know, basically means Harry was an instrument used to rape her. And most of the focus is on how sad it is for Harry. (Not that it isn’t really bad for him, too.)
I can’t help but think, though, that Harry’s life is kind of being…cleaned out? Luccio and Morgan are out of the picture, and Thomas is probably going to be more peripheral for a while. Molly is an unavoidable (thankfully, for me at least) central part of it, but her parents seem to mostly be through in the series, and Murphy and the weres are still his “team,” (or whatever) but still a somewhat peripheral part of his life, just much more central when things get bad and/or need looking into.
Random sidenote: Merlin got characterization. Even if it was just that he likes sandwiches and maybe kinda cares about his subordinates. Maybe Ancient Mai is next?