Wizard by Trade: Summer Knight / Death Masks (The Dresden Files, Nos. 4-5)

Great stories about a modern day private-eye wizard. Sort of a common "every-man" who happens to have magical powers, and really interesting friends AND enemies. A fun read on every level.

This volume contains two very good but oh-so-different stories that represent Butcher at his finest up to that point. His books get better with every one he publishes. Summer Knight is the almost light-hearted story about how Dresden gets caught up in a power-struggle between the two faerie courts. The plot is original and off-beat and gives Murphy a much more active role than she's had before in the battle between good and evil. The final battle, surreal as it is, makes you feel like you're there. And, in true Butcher style, you have to break off from reading some very tense passages in order to laugh, either at something Harry has to say or at some insanely clever and amusing new twist. Death Masks is an altogether darker work, focusing on demons rather than faeries. The end of the world is once more a very real possibility (when is it NOT if Harry Dresden has to get involved) and to make matters worse for Harry, Susan Rodrigez is back on the scene. Let the angst begin! Harry makes some new friends, fights alongside some old ones, and has his life changed forever by when he makes a split-second decision to protect a child. Butcher keeps getting better, as he proves with every successive novel. Summer Knight and Death Masks show a decided improvement over earlier works (although Death Masks contains what I consider a needless and overly-graphic sex scene that I can't even call a "love scene"). Reading these made me impatient to see what Butcher would have for us next.

This is a special edition omnibus of the fourth and fifth books of the Dresden files--available only from the Science Fiction Book Club or second hand.