The Stats
📖 BOOK REVIEW⠀📚
BOOK: Skin Game
AUTHOR: Jim Butcher @longshotauthor
Publisher: Roc Hardcover, of Penguin Random House @penguinrandomhouse
Stars: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Published: July 26, 2011
The Review
So far, this is my favorite of the Dresden Files Series. Let’s start there.
Harry has now done all his paperwork. He’s back to life, he’s got his new gig as the Winter Knight, a company car, and a fancy corner office. If a cursed, Lovecraftian prison is “corner office” enough for you. Next job in the inbox: He is to assist a known criminal with a heist. Okay. Sure.
The criminal is Nichodemus Arcleone, bearer of one of the thirty strongest fallen angels, and general not-nice-person. He isn’t happy about this, but what is worse is the target. They are going to rob mob-boss Gentleman Johnny Marcone, a man whose connections make him the only non-magical person to be an equal to the Winter and Summer Queens of Fairie, diplomatically speaking. Oh, and the only reason they are robbing him is to get to the actual target: the vault of Hades, lord of death and darkness. No pressure.
So, like Dresden Files books usually are, expect magic missiles and misdirection at every turn. Like a typical heist, though, expect some serious twists to turn everything on its head. It’s lots of fun, and it also introduces another new character in Goodman Gray, who is just a load of fun.
One other thing to note is a single scene that very nearly snapped me in half. Dresden sacrificed just about everything to rescue his daughter without becoming a monster in the book Changes. Now, he’s wracked with guilt and unable to face the little child. He’s afraid she remembers and sees him as a monster. When he finally does meet her, she says something that broke my heart worse than anything I’ve ever read.
So, SPOILER WARNING BECAUSE I CAN’T JUST NOT SAY IT.
“Do you want to be my daddy?”
SPOILERS OVER
Consider if you like :
If you’re all grown up and ready for darker, more mature content, but also loved Harry Potter, give the other magical Harry a try. This particular one is a twisty-turny heist with all the players out to screw each other, so if that’s what you’re into, this is a pretty good example.
*****
Summary:
Harry Dresden, Chicago’s only professional wizard, is about to have a very bad day…
Because as Winter Knight to the Queen of Air and Darkness, Harry never knows what the scheming Mab might want him to do. Usually, it’s something awful.
He doesn’t know the half of it…
Mab has just traded Harry’s skills to pay off one of her debts. And now he must help a group of supernatural villains—led by one of Harry’s most dreaded and despised enemies, Nicodemus Archleone—to break into the highest-security vault in town, so that they can then access the highest-security vault in the Nevernever.
It’s a smash and grab job to recover the literal Holy Grail from the vaults of the greatest treasure hoard in the supernatural world—which belongs to the one and only Hades, Lord of the freaking Underworld and generally unpleasant character. Worse, Dresden suspects that there is another game afoot that no one is talking about. And he’s dead certain that Nicodemus has no intention of allowing any of his crew to survive the experience. Especially Harry.
Dresden’s always been tricky, but he’s going to have to up his backstabbing game to survive this mess—assuming his own allies don’t end up killing him before his enemies get the chance…
I voluntarily read and reviewed. All thoughts and opinions are my own.