Peace Talks is the sixteenth novel in Jim Butcher’s best-selling Dresden Files series and finds Harry Dresden, unsurprisingly, at the center of supernatural chaos and politics. He learns his vampire half-brother Thomas is accused (very convincingly) of murder and being held prisoner while the supernatural community is gathering for (title drop) Peace Talks. Harry’s actions of late, especially since having the mantle of the Winter Knight thrust upon him by Queen Mab, have come under even more scrutiny than usual. What’s a half-brother to do other than break out his brother from a supernatural prison while avoiding any further besmirching of his character. While this may seem like the worst weekend of most people’s lives, it is just a few days in the life of Harry Dresden.
HARRY DRESDEN IS BACK AND READY FOR ACTION, in the new entry in the #1 New York Times bestselling Dresden Files.
When the Supernatural nations of the world meet up to negotiate an end to ongoing hostilities, Harry Dresden, Chicago’s only professional wizard, joins the White Council’s security team to make sure the talks stay civil. But can he succeed, when dark political manipulations threaten the very existence of Chicago—and all he holds dear?
Reviewing a book this deep into any series poses some difficulties, so much of what happens, where Harry Dresden’s character development lies, as well as his relationships and the other characters relationships are veritable spoilers for earlier installments in the series. Suffice it to say, providing some of the larger players in Peace Talks from the Dresden Files milieu might not constitute too much of a spoiler. Karrin Murphy is of course heavily involved in events, providing an additional level of tension. Lara Raith, Thomas’s sister, is a further complication, but a natural player in the novel due to that sibling connection. Molly, Harry’s former padawan and powerful mage in her own right is probably a second level player, though extremely vital to how events play out. Molly’s father and Knight of the Cross, Michael Carpenter, put in a welcome appearance, Ebenezar McCoy, the most powerful wizard in the world and Harry’s grandfather is a critical player. Some of the more recent characters to emerge (say, from the last three or four books), also make critical, if minor appearances.
I found myself very frustrated with Harry at times, more so than I can recall being frustrated with his stubbornness in the past. But that’s one of the things Butcher does well, he remains true to Harry’s character, Harry’s reasons for his actions make sense even if they are somewhat annoying from an outside perspective.
If readers have made it to book fifteen, Skin Game, there’s likely little doubt they’ll continue. However, five years have passed since that fifteenth book published and as a reader who has been eagerly anticipating a new Dresden Files novel, I was extremely pleased with this novel. Peace Talks is very much a set up novel, though. Earlier in the year, we learned that we’d get two Dresden Files novels in 2020, but as it turns out and often happens, Peace Talks grew and Jim and the publisher decided to release two novels, this and Battle Ground in order to more coherently tell the story as it grew from his initial vision (more at Tor.com). Given that, we have to judge Peace Talks on what it is, if it accomplished what it set out to accomplish as the initial chapters laid out and not judge it against what it isn’t. In that respect, Peace Talks is a damned entertaining novel. The conflict is laid out really well, both global and personal for Harry, as well as how the two levels of conflict are intertwined. Harry is just as entertaining as ever as narrator, it is fun to reacquaint with the cast of characters and feel the vise grip of pressure Harry feels. Knowing beforehand that what we get in Peace Talks is part of something larger, and not the typical episodic adventure we get out of a Dresden Files novel helps to temper the relatively short nature of the novel and that not everything introduced is resolved helps. This could also be seen as maybe a sign of things to come since Jim has stated multiple occasions that he intends to end The Dresden Files with an “apocalyptic trilogy.” But that short nature is balanced by the fact that in about two months, Battle Ground will be released.
Bottom Line: Peace Talks delivers as another entertaining installment in The Dresden Files and whets the appetite for bigger things to come in Battle Ground.
Highly Recommended
© 2020 Rob H. Bedford
July 2020 | Ace Books
340 Pages | Hardcover
https://www.jim-butcher.com
Review copy courtesy of the publisher, Ace Books
Sample Chapter: https://www.jim-butcher.com/?page_id=4296
