Heads up: I don’t tag spoilers. I often write these reviews with foreknowledge of the series, and will reference future events without warning. If you don’t want to be spoiled, turn back now.
This book breaks my heart. On the one hand, this feels like the beginning of a distinct arc that takes us up to the end of Changes, and Changes is my favourite entry in the series. On the other hand, the antagonists in this book do nothing for me.
These reviews have been helpful for me to remember more information about each book, and given me the opportunity to reflect on the themes, ideas, and characters that resonate with me. In doing so, I’ve realized that the Kemmlerites do actually matter and show up more in the series, which was my annoyance with this book in my initial read through. Although I don’t blame Butcher at all for not carrying every character/villain forward in the series, I always count it as a plus when we get to see characters re-appear in later instalments.
Although, I do deduct points that the re-appearance of the Kemmlerites in later books made almost no impression on my memory. The most egregious example of this is Grevane, who for my money is the most interesting Kemmlerite, but gets abandoned after this book. Ho hum.
It’s possible that my affinity for Grevane is solely the aura from my actual favourite antagonist splashing up against him: Liver Spots.
AKA Quintus Cassius. I will be forever sad that the climax of this book was supposed to be a fight with the Kemmlerites and their armies of the undead, but the much more tense scene is when Cassius is torturing Harry in the museum. I love this character because he feels so real and is pathologically, murderously obsessed with revenge against Dresden for losing him his coin.
Which, given the character, is a great reason to want to kill Harry. Cassius being left broken and bleeding at the end of Death Masks gives him a solid motive for wanting to come after Dresden - and to make it hurt. It also shows us that there are repercussions in this universe to Harry’s anger, which is a terrific character flaw that helps him feel grounded and real.
Cassius also being a former Denarian, and having his power forcibly removed from him after lifetimes of wielding a coin lets us know he is capable of terrible violence. With all these elements set up, the scene where Cassius has Dresden “right where he wants him” and then starts cutting in to him is so refreshing as opposed to tropey monologuing. It feels grounded and real, and lends credibility to a universe where a wizard rides a zombie dinosaur through Chicago on Halloween. It’s too bad that most of this is happening in the background of a conflict with a couple of cardboard cut-out necromancers.
I wonder if the book would be better if Jim picked one Kemmlerite pairing to focus on, and we got to spend more time fighting with them and exploring their powers instead of getting like one fight scene with each pair. Cowl & Kumori are interesting as straight-up powerful dark wizards, with us seeing Dresden drop a car on Cowl and it barely phasing him, and Kumori having some grey morality where she saves some random passer-by from death. Corpsetaker’s body-swapping is inherently interesting and could have gone some interesting directions, and I’ve already expressed my love for Grevane & Cassius. Not to mention Grevane seemed to be the most competent, and had his cool zombie army that breaks in to Dresden’s apartment.
But no, instead we get spare samplings of each pairing. Even Corpsetaker’s big moment where she swaps with Luccio and Dresden has to have that lightning realization and shoot Luccio’s body happens too fast. It falls flat that we get to see Corpsetaker’s version of The People’s Elbow and seconds later see her get popped in the head. I would have liked to have one or two smaller instances of Corpsetaker using their power earlier in the book to build up the hype, like for instance a client that comes to Dresden saying “help someone is in my body, I’m not whoever this person is!” and have that be the inciting incident that drags Dresden in to conflict with the Kemmlerites.
Which is another criticism I have of the antagonists in this book. My personal main villain, Cassius, actually holds third in the villain hierarchy plot-wise. First is the Kemmlerites, but second is Mavra of all people (people in heavy air-quotes).
She also feels totally unnecessary to make this plot work. She pushes Dresden across the threshold for this quest, but he would have gotten swept up in it with his connection to Butters anyway. Grevane attacked Butters when Harry happened to be there, and knowing Harry, he would have gotten swept up in the Darkhallow plot, with or without Mavra’s intervention.
Which, hold on, let’s talk about Butters for a minute.
I appreciate Butters getting added to Dresden’s Army because it unlocks Harry to keep growing in power while leaving a purely vanilla, non ass-kicking member around for the reader to identify with. While I love adventuring with Murphy/Michael/Thomas/Billy Borden, they are all fighters. Butters throwing up from fear while the zombies attack and having “Polka will never die!” shouted at him is so endearing, and is probably how most of us would respond to the spectacular and terrifying world Dresden occupies.
Butters is also another one of these characters who are “half-and-half”. I’m classifying him along with the Changelings (half-fae) and Kincaid (half-whatever-he-is) as someone who is “half-science”. The other half-and-half folks are part magic part muggle, but Butters is coming at it from the other side in my mind; he’s half muggle and half whatever the opposite of magic is (in this case I’m calling it science as a catch-all). He seems to be even further in to the “magic can’t be real” camp than a couple of the other vanilla folks we’ve met, so much so that he comes up with scientific theories to explain why Harry can heal himself so well, or why wizards mess with electronics.
Which is fun to watch as Butters begins to accept the spooky side of the block over the course of the series. He gets more and more wrapped up in Harry’s life due to his functional nature as the one healer that Harry can rely on (and gives us some great Bonesian moments of “Dammit Dresden I’m a medical examiner not a doctor!”) At this point in the series, most of us have bought in to the world so hard that we lose that aspect of wonder. Butters is a great way for us to recontextualize what is happening to Harry daily is, in fact, not normal.
Speaking of weird circumstances that Harry often finds himself in: enter Lash.
I’m probably biased due to my unashamed love for all things Denarian, but Lash’s concept is so interesting to me. I appreciate the fact that she’s framed more as a “shadow” or “the footprint you leave in wet sand on a beach” as opposed to being the full-blown aspect of the Fallen Angel Lasciel. I mean, Harry’s strong and all, but it would be ridiculous for him to contend with a being that is older than time itself. Making Lash a scaled down version of the full blown Fallen gives the story credibility when Harry contends with her will (and wins).
Her introduction is also a lot of fun, playing around with the unreliable narrator. There’s this lesser known movie called “Thr3e” that I enjoy (though I am not known for having good taste in movies, so take that as you will), and, without giving too much away, Lash only being “real” to Harry hits similar notes. I would have loved to have some sort of visual reference for what Butters must have seen when he walked in on Dresden and “Sheila” in “her apartment”, which I imagine pushed Butters further in to the belief that magic isn’t real, and that Harry is mental.
Lash also gives Harry an interesting take on the nature of the Fallen and how they might not be as different from him as he wants to believe. She gives an allegory about how the Fallen didn’t want to live under what they believed to be an old, foolish, oppressive regime, and that they instead wanted to strike out on their own, in an attempt to be better than what they left behind. She then relates that to Harry’s own tumultuous relationship with the White Council, saying he of all people should be able to understand why the Fallen did what they did.
I’ve mentioned before that I enjoy when Butcher has Harry get self-reflective about his values, for instance his relationship to magic in contrast to Michael’s relationship to the divine. Having the Fallen throw this angle at Harry is another piece of evidence that the world is a lot greyer than a younger Harry may have believed.
I think a lot of great moments that come from the Dresden Files are when Harry confronts the monster within, and one of his biggest personal demons is the constant allure of using his power for himself. His joining up with Lash and her insinuation that he and the Fallen may not be so different is a double-whammy: it compromises some of his moral ground by equating his actions to those of Fallen angels, and gives him access to a tempting well of power (as if his current allotment of power was not temptation enough).
Harry’s struggle against the influence of Lash is one of my more favourite mini-arcs because we get to have a quasi-Denarian around full time. Pair that up with Mouse now joining Harry on missions in the field (who doesn’t like dogs?) and Thomas moving in with Harry, and the Lash arc represents a great slice of the series. We’re through the “powering up” phase and can move in to the “fighting bigger and badder threats” phase with pick-and-mix parties from Dresden’s Army. All the while, Harry has this constant drum beat in his ear:
“Take the coin, use the power for good, you’re stronger than all the others who have come before…”
“Take the coin…”
“Take the coin…”
“Take the coin…”