Turn Coat
Book 11 of the Dresden Files
by Jim Butcher
Note: Contains a few spoilers from the first chapter.
Anyone who’s been reading The Dresden Files is familiar with the White Councils’ warlock exterminating pit-bull, the Warden Donald Morgan; the man who held the sword above Harry’s teenaged head, the fatal stroke averted only by the Councils’ grudging decision (under intense pressure from senior council member Ebenezer McCoy) to give Harry a second chance under the Doom of Damocles. Morgan views Harry as the-Warlock-that-got-away (perhaps the only one ever), and considers his continued survival to be the gravest of insults against both the laws of magic and himself personally.
Now, accused of murdering a senior member of the White Council Morgan finds himself on the run from the very merciless fate he himself has doled out time and again to known and suspected warlocks for centuries. He has a price on his head, is seriously wounded, and is only hidden under the protection of a very powerful magic with a shelf-life of about 48 hours. To make matters worse, he isn’t just being tracked by Wardens and bounty-hunters; during his escape through the ways, an immortal shape-shifting monstrosity picked up his trail. In other words, he’s just desperate enough to seek help from the last person on earth anyone would suspect.
You guessed it; Chicago’s friendly neighborhood wizard detective.
Now, Harry’s caught between the proverbial rock and the hard place; after all Morgan has said and done Harry should be at the front of the pack howling for his head on a stick. Then again, he’s known Morgan for most of his life – even soul gazed him once – and the idea that the overzealous Warden has gone over to the dark side is utterly inconceivable. On the one hand, he helps Morgan and it all goes south his life will be forfeit, and likely the life of his apprentice and any allies who might have become involved. On the other hand, there’s no shaking the notion that the situation is part of some larger puzzle, something deeper and more sinister; there is a traitor in the White Council, and he’s taking them apart from the inside out
Time is running out, and the real killer probably isn’t going to rest on his laurels while the Wardens hunt Morgan down. When Morgan has been brought down, or perhaps before, he will strike again to further divide the White Council; something it could ill afford even if it were not engaged in a full-on war with the Red Court. Despite butting heads with them as often as he does, Harry is painfully aware of the Councils’ vital role in protecting humanity from the abuse of magic and the hosts of supernatural predators kept at bay by the accords.
Of course, you know what he’s going to do. This is the guy who already has his own tombstone engraved “Here lies Harry Dresden – he died doing the right thing.”
There are some major events in this book, jarring leaps in character development on a number of levels. We see Harry gaining ground among the Council as a player in his own right, and his reputation for recklessness and the undisciplined application of magical brute force slowly giving way to a grudging respect, both from his fellow wizards of the White Council and from the other factions of The Accords. Harry’s relationships change and develop with his apprentice Molly, with his brother Thomas, with Lucio, with Ebenezer McCoy, Listens-To-Wind, the Gate Keeper, and even the Merlin. Morgan, we see, is definitely (as Molly so succinctly puts it) an asshole – but we do get a few glimpses beneath the grizzled exterior, and his heart is not the shriveled husk you might think.
All in all, Turn Coat delivers the standard Dresden Files package, which is to say it’s FREAKIN’ AWESOME!
Here we are on the eleventh book of the series, and I feel like I’ve barely gotten a taste of the life and times of Harry Dresden. I can’t wait for the twelfth.
By Matt Walker – Staff Writer
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I concur with your evaluation of Turn Coat. It really is FREAKIN’ AWESOME. The last 40 pages were pretty hard to take and I don’t consider myself to be overly sentimental. It was like watching the end of Old Yeller.
I am one of the beta readers for jim. I cried and cried for the last several chapters. and then cried again when the book came out. and AGAIN when I read mean streets.
the next book will be called “Changes.” it breaks with the naming system he has been using for the books, but jim said that everything else has changed, so why not how he names the books as well.