Turn Coat
Written by: Jim Butcher
Published by RoC
ISBN: 9780451462565
Reviewed by Lauren Lapinski
A wizard accused of a crime he claims not to have committed, a creature of myth and nightmare on the loose in Chicago, a traitor amongst the White Council of wizards, and only one man in the phone book who is willing to take it all on. Combine these elements together and you get Turn Coat. The eleventh book in The Dresden Files series, Jim Butcher once again delivers a story full of wit, hilarity, evil doer ass kicking, and plenty of spell casting to go around. From the first chapter all the way to the end of the novel, you are brought directly into the story, all the while trying to figure out who is the true traitor on the White Council.
The pacing of this novel is perfect, not once is the reader lost or confused (except at times when Harry himself is confused) and as it has always been, every character is true to themselves through and though. The actions scenes are brilliantly told with a final confrontation that can only be best described as Epic. The characters actually come off as being real people you can actually relate too, including the supernatural ones such as the vampire Thomas, and you actually get to see their flaws and character development play out as the story goes on. Their reactions are realistic to the point that the reason why they do what they do is something the reader can actually see happening if the situation in the story were real. Characters also aren’t simply “good” or “evil”, you get to see the light side and dark side of most of the characters and very few, if any at all, run into the basic pure good/pure evil without any rhyme and reason as to why the are what they are. The White Council is the best example of this, the rules of how the White Council runs things tends to border on extreme at a lot of points, but there is often an underlying reason as to why the rule is the way it is.
Best of all, a lot of the theories behind the working of the spells and magick wielding is actually explained! You don’t get some spell out of nowhere that doesn’t have any sort of reasoning behind how it works and why. You also get to read about creatures that come from actual folklore. The monster or baddie actually has an identity and once again, has some reason (as psychotic as it usually is with villains) for why it does what it does.
For those of you who have given up on adult geared Urban Fantasy novels, The Dresden Files series is the one that will restore your faith in the genre for unlike most in the genre, the series actually manages to have an actually plot and the author clearly cares about his character. You also don’t have to worry about those pesky random sex scene that make no sense (Former Anita Blake fans will know what I’m talking about.) since every book stays true to its characters and its storyline. I do suggest that if you do decide to check out this series, to start out with the first novel, Storm Front. While Turn Coat is an amazing book, newbies to the series may get lost and may not be familiar with the various characters and what their significance is in the series.