Cold Days: A Novel of the Dresden Files
*Starred Review* Harry Dresden, the Chicago PI and professional wizard, has been having a pretty weird time of it lately. In 2012’s Ghost Story, Harry is trapped between life and death but on the trail of his own killer all the same; after discovering that killer’s shocking identity, he decides to let himself pass into death. But Queen Mab has other ideas, and that’s where the latest episode in the Dresden Files novels picks up the story. Mab, who has wanted Harry to be her hatchet man for a long time, has a job for him—several jobs, actually, a sort of shopping list of evil deeds, beginning with murder. Harry, basically a good man, doesn’t take killing lightly, especially when his intended victim happens to be immortal. Harry thinks there must be a reason why Mab wants this particular immortal killed at this particular time, and when he hits up some sources back in Chicago, he figures out she’s probably setting him up—but why? By this point, more than a dozen novels into the series, Butcher is pretty much assuming that if you’re reading the latest Dresden novel, you’re familiar with the ones that came before it. Readers coming to the novel without any previous experience might feel like they’ve tuned into an epic, multicharacter TV miniseries about halfway through, but fans of the Dresden Files, who have a lot invested in Harry, will be lining up to see whether he escapes his death as slickly as he did last time. Butcher remains the gold standard for urban fantasy.      HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: The Dresden Files started slowly as a paperback original series but eventually built an audience and moved to hardcover. From there, it was a short jump to becoming the quintessential urban fantasy. --David Pitt