My Haunted Library

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Review: Peace Talks

Harry Dresden, practicing wizard and dogged detective is back. Now, Harry’s racing to save his vampire brother, rescue Chicago from a formidable foe, and, equally challenging for Harry, exercise tact at the supernatural peace accords.

Oh, Harry—I’ve missed you.

Peace Talks—Jim Butcher, 2020. Rating: 4.5/5

It’s been six years since Skin Game (2014), when we last had the unmitigated pleasure of watching Harry pull off a daring heist of Hades’ bank vault. Peace Talks picks up right where Skin Game left off. Life has quieted down (marginally) for Harry. He and his daughter are living safely with the svartalves. His relationship with his brother Thomas is good. His relationship with Murphy is great. But who needs stability, right? Harry’s grandfather warns him the wizard’s White Council is out to get him. The Wardens think Harry’s humanity has been…compromised…by Queen Mab. Thomas is accused of an assassination attempt. Mab orders Harry to do a favor for the sexy and fearsome vampire leader, Lara Raith. The police are on Harry’s trail for some run-of-the-mill (for Harry) mayhem following the bank heist. Oh, and the dangerous, watery Fomor produce a bona-fide Titan goddess who enthusiastically plans destroy all of humanity. Harry lives in interesting times.

Honestly, I’ve been both longing for and dreading a new Harry adventure. Dread almost won out: what if Butcher lost Harry’s mojo? What if Harry wasn’t, well, Harry? What if the plot got pretentious? Or moribund, like so many series that drag on past their prime? Essentially, what if the book sucked? I refused to read Peace Talks for a few weeks, I was that worried.

Needlessly.

Peace Talks is everything I wanted and, frankly, needed right now: the rush of an amusement park ride, the familiarity of my most comfy chair, and a hero. Butcher got it all right. Harry is still Harry: battered but not broken, hard-nosed and soft-hearted, wry, and a little goofy. And he continues to grow. Harry’s newly developing intimacy with Murphy is tender and shy. Harry’s friends and enemies alike are equally complex. The Chicago Harry knows and loves is gloriously, grittily real. If I visit, I fully expect to run into Harry tooling around the city in his Munstermobile, or exercising on Montrose Beach. Returning to Harry’s world—chaotic, treacherous, violent, loving—is a joy.

Butcher brilliantly keeps a lot of balls in the air, ratcheting the suspense high, our anxiety higher, and the story flying. At 340 pages, the book was still too short, it was that good. The end of Peace Talks does leave the plot hanging off multiple cliffs. I’d be grumpy about this Empire Strikes Back finish, except the sequel is already out. Battle Ground. And I won’t be waiting weeks to read it. Insert sigh of happiness.   

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Review: Afterlife

Afterlife – Marcus Sakey, 2017. 5/5

Being dead doesn’t stop FBI agent Will Brody from reuniting with his soulmate in this sci-fi thriller that is also one of the most affecting love stories you’ll ever read.

Killed pursuing a shooter, Brody discovers that the afterlife isn’t exactly what he expected. Not that he knew what to expect, but still. Turns out bad guys end up there too. In an empty, greyer version of Chicago, Brody joins a community of other dead who have banded together for safety against the eaters: those who eat other souls to gain a measure of vitality. Brody and Claire, the love of his life—and death—go up against an ancient, powerful eater who is not only wreaking havoc in the afterlife but pushing his terror out into the world of the living.

Afterlife is a heart-pounding page-turner. The thriller action is sharp and fast, the dialogue pops with humor, and the characters are touchingly genuine. What elevates Afterlife to spectacular is the depth of thought and emotion that sings in every aspect of Sakey’s writing. Even mundane details of daily life attain gut-punching poignancy. Sakey’s vision of the hereafter also calls to mind two works by one of my favorite authors, Richard Matheson: I Am Legend (’54) and What Dreams May Come (’78). Sakey’s unique perspective invokes a layered but similar post-apocalyptic vibe, and a similar message: the power of love and power of good transcend all.

Afterlife resonates like a poem. You’ll finish this book and whisper, “wow.” It will settle insistently, but gently, in your subconscious and your heart, reminding you to live your own life story with passion. You don’t know how much you value something until it’s lost.

rating system five crows


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Review: Dark Matter

Dark Matter  Blake Crouch, 2017.

Jason Dessen is an unambitious quantum physics professor at a decent if unremarkable college.   Contentedly if not happily married to his wife.  He could have been brilliant in his field.  In a parallel universe, he is.

On the way home from celebrating his old roommate’s stellar Pavia Prize – a coveted sciences award he himself potentially should have won – Jason is abducted at gunpoint.  Forcibly injected with an unknown substance.

He awakens in a tightly-guarded research facility hospital.  He is decontaminated and lauded by people who know him, but whom he has no memory of.

Is he losing his mind? Which is his real world?

The Jason Dessen he is in this universe is colder.  Ruthless.  Driven.  As he learns about the powerful invention the other Jason created, he knows he must find his way back to his version of Chicago and the love of his life.

What follows is a suspenseful, blistering-fast read.  Jason travels across parallel universes; some heart-achingly close to his old life, some hellishly or marvelously different.  There is a terrible pathos in Jason’s predicament, and readers identify with him on a profound level.  Crouch touches an enduring existential fear in all of us.  Where does one fit?  What is the meaning of one’s life?  Is there, in fact, meaning?

Dark Matter is foremost a thriller, but it resonates deeper; leaving readers contemplating their own paths not taken and the results of their own choices made or not made.

Some plot revelations you’ll see coming.  Some you won’t.  Guaranteed, you will not want to put this book down.


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Review: Broken Monsters

Broken Monsters – Lauren Beukes, 2014

Broken Monsters initially seems to be a gritty but familiar cop-vs.-disturbed-serial-killer tale.  Which would be a good read in itself. But readers are quickly thrown off-guard when the familiarity of that genre is yanked away and things take a supernatural turn.

The setting is perfect.  Detroit: blasted, crumbling, stricken, yet persevering.  This real wasteland is juxtaposed with the shiny, removed world of social media and the idea that maybe, art and writing can transcend this reality.  But in a good way?

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