Customer Reviews

Grave Peril (The Dresden Files, Book 3)

5 star:		(73)
4 star:		(49)
3 star:		(20)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This is my first review on Amazon, so that should say something about how much I really loved this book and this series. This is the series that I think "Anita Blake" started out to be. The universe (present day Chicago wherein magic and the supernatural are there if one knows where to look) is deftly and wittily drawn. The protagonist, Harry Dresden, professional wizard, is smartly wise-cracking without (quite) becoming annoying. He's engagingly flawed and fallible, and if I have one gripe with his adventures, it is that in every book he seems to get SO beaten up so often that his endurance begins to strain credibility (and patience: "What? On Death's Door again?"), even for a wizard.

Mr. Butcher peppers his books with engaging and believable allies and adversaries -- multi-layered, varied and believable, both as foils for Dresden and as characters in their own right."Grave Peril" is no exception in the strength of the secondary characters. Michael, the True Knight, was just a marvelous ally, part straight man, part Tower of Strength.

This third book in the series pushes a little farther on the sex and violence front. If "Storm Front" was PG or PG-13, "Grave Peril" is definately 'R'. However, Mr. Butcher has yet to go over the top; his descriptions are done with finesse, innuendo where appropriate, and evocative language that is never crass.

I do recommend this series: part Film Noir Private Eye, part Vampire Hunter (though much more 'Angel' than 'Buffy', right down to the flowing black coat), with maybe a little sword and sorcerer thrown in the mix. Lots of mystery and plenty of action, likable characters and a nicely textured urban fantasy world. "Grave Peril" is grittier than the first book, but evocative and with a sense of real peril and emotional jeapordy for the protagonist and his allies. A wonderful read.

Grave Peril is a funny, witty, rip-roaring, seat-of-your-pants, stay-up-and-read-it-in-one-night kind of book. Once again, Wizard Harry Dresden is up to his elbows in trouble, this time he's assisted by the ever stalwart and faithful co-hort, Michael -- a Knight of the Cross. The streets of Chicago have become a battle ground for terrozing ghosts and other otherworldly problems. All in all, a fine read, lots of fun. Grave Peril flows easily like an excellent mystery novel, keeping you on the edge of your seat, wondering what is going to happen next. It's filled with wit and sarcasm from Harry's point of view. 5 stars. This is a must read.

Harry Dresden, Jim Butcher's wise-cracking wizard gumshoe returns in this gripping adventure! This time Harry finds himself a reluctant ghostbuster who must discover who have stirred up the ghosts of the spirit world who are going on a terror spree in Chicago.Harry's adventures will take from escaping from seductive but manipulative fairy godmother who seeks to enslave him, to battle blood-thirsty vampires and finally to a terrifying ghost of a demon he has slain!Harry Dresden series is entertaining blend of magic mystery, mirth and mayhem as you watch Harry get himself into and of of trouble and who's sense of honor is written in stone.The characters again come alive in this series like Harry's friend,michael a real knight who juggles saving the world with his responsiblities of his family.
Bianca, the sinister head of the vampires in town and her equally menacing vampire hench people:Kyle and Kelly. Susan Rodriguez, Harry's on again off again reporter girlfriend. I love this series and you will to. So if you want excitement.Who you gonna call? Harry Dresden of course!

It should come as no surprise to the followers of Harry Dresden, freelance wizard and general dogooder, that Harry starts out the third volume of this series in every bit as much trouble as he ended the last. After all, Harry's natural state is jumping out of frying pans and into fires. Except when he is looking for another frying pan to fall out of. This time the book opens with Harry and a new friend, Michael (a Knight of the Sword and even a bigger dogooder than Harry) racing to stop Agatha the ghost, who has a bit too much affection for infants. Without fail, Harry fumbles the attack and Michael and he must pursue Agatha into the Nevernever. In the process of putting Agatha away Harry has a run in with his dysfunctional fairy godmother and barely manages to escape with all his body parts.

Michael and Harry have been chasing down disgruntled ghosts for weeks now, and finally Harry has come to believe that this isn't just a series of coincidences. Instead, someone is deliberately stirring the ectoplasm with evil intentions. But Harry barely has time to discover this when he is visited by two vampires, who go out of their way to irritate him while delivering a formal invitation to the elevation of Bianca St. Claire to the position of Margravine of the Vampire Court. You may remember Bianca from "Fool Moon." She was the vampiress Harry managed to make a deadly enemy of in the first 15 minutes of their meeting. Harry may be slow witted, but even he knows that Bianca's plans include making Dresden au gratin.

So he refuses the invitation, right? Well, not quite. A wild series of ghostly attacks, bespelled friends, and damsels in distress ensue. Harry, a class act as usual, manages to lose Michael's magic sword, fail the damsels, and barely keep his friend's alive. It is only a matter of time before the ever-widening swath of disasters leads Harry straight to Bianca's soiree and Harry-splatting party. And does Harry get splatted? You bet. It is characteristic of this story that the question Harry gets asked most often is "What happened to you?" And these are just the highlights of the quiet part of the novel.

Jim Butcher has once again concocted a unique mix of comedy and horror, In doing so he has created an entirely new genre, which I call 'noir vaudeville.' Bad things keep happening, and the life-span of one of Harry's friends seems to be about a week, but you can't help snickering and moaning. Perhaps because Harry generally deserves everything that happens to him. But you do have to feel sorry for Michael and his wife, Harry's girlfriend Susan, and most of the Chicago police force. And don't forget poor Bob the sex-fiend in a skull, who gets a serious workout this time and no fun. Butcher ends "Grave Peril" on a 'to be continued' note, which means we can look forward to even more misadventures from the career of the most hapless wizard in the Midwest. Let's hope Harry has good medical insurance.

Grave Peril (2001) is the third urban fantasy in the Dresden Files series, following Fool Moon. In the previous volume, the renegade FBI agents were all killed and the hexanwolf belts were burned by Harry and Murphy. Susan's film of the death of the loup-garou went on the morning news and was shown for two days afterward before it vanished.

Tera was badly injured, but recovered when she converted to human form. The Alphas suffered few injuries and were soon ready for Harry to lead them on another crusade. Nonetheless, the whole situation left Dresden wondering whether some wizard was working in the shadows to cause these problems.

In this novel, Michael Carpenter and Harry have been responding to visitations by some rather powerful ghosts during the past two weeks. Michael is a Knight of the Cross, a Fist of God, carrying the blessed sword Amorachius. Tonight they banish the ghost of Agatha Hagglethorn from the Cook County Hospital nursery and the babies breathe easily again.

After this banishment, the police arrest both Harry and Michael for disturbing the peace and trespress and they impound the Blue Beetle. After an hour or so, Harry and Michael are released on bail. Charity Carpenter is less than pleased with Harry for getting her husband in trouble, but Susan Rodriguez just wants to know about the story.

It has been a long night, but the vampires are waiting when Harry and Susan reach his basement abode. Luckily, Kyle and Kelly Hamilton are delivering an invitation for Harry and guest to attend a reception of the Red Court for Bianca St. John. As the local representative of the White Council, Harry would be find it difficult to follow his own inclinations and skip the vampire affair entirely.

Then Michael shows up just before dawn. The day before, Harry had sent a client calling herself Lydia to Father Forthill at Saint Mary of the Angels to protect her from a life threatening situation. During the night, a very strong spirit had appeared and demanded that the girl come out. When she remained inside, the spirit had torn up the roses outside the door and trashed the vehicles parked in the lot. Sometime during the night, however, Lydia had unlocked the back door and left the church.

Later, Harry finds the girl in a late model van parked in an abandoned storefront. Then Kyle and Kelly show up and Dresden calls fire upon the vampires, accidentally cutting the support beams and setting the building on fire. The vampires get away with the girl and Harry barely gets out before the whole front of the building collapses.

In this story, Harry attends the Red Court reception, taking Michael with him in full knightly regalia. The invitation didn't say that he had to bring a guest of the other sex. One of the vampire attendees admires Michael's costume and touches it; the resulting shock sends him into convulsions. Thereafter, the vampires look, but don't touch.

The other outsider invitees are an odd lot. One is a Black vampire, one is a White vampire, and another is a dragon. Unhappily, Susan is also there, having forged a copy of Harry's invitation. She learns more than she wants to know about Red vampires at the affair.

This story puts Harry in a bind. He has to let the Red Court hurt his friends or start a war between the vampires and the White Council. Of course, Dresden does it the hard way.

Harry finds out who has been agitating the wall between the real world and Nevernever, letting spirits slip over and cause trouble. He helps Murphy by removing a nasty spell from a disabled veteran of Special Investigations. He also meets a spirit who is posing as himself and discovers the true identity of Lydia. Some nights it just doesn't pay to get out of bed.

As usual, Harry loses sleep, barely escapes death and worries about his friends. He chastises himself for not doing more, not being everywhere and other improbabilities. Dresden is really into self-blame.

Highly recommended for Butcher fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of powerful ghosts, vampire parties, and overworked wizards.

-Arthur W. Jordin

This is the third book in Jim Butcher's Dresden files, and I have yet to read the first two, but I did enjoy this urban-scape detective of the supernatural fantasy. Dresden's first person narrative keep this story full of dry humor and film noir feel.

Dresden is a PI/wizard who's middle name is trouble. This time his supernatural snafu is a ghostly being that is able to rouse other ghosts and harm Dresden's friends. It's up to the only wizard in town to discover who's behind it all.

This series has been pegged as similar to Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series, and on the surface, that's a fair comparison. Both deal with urban societies and parnormal baddies. Both have a tough edge, supernatural powers, and a penchant for violence. Both have a tough time in their love lives. That being said, Jim Butcher's novel has a distinctly male flavor to it. There is far less relationship time and sensitivity, more interest in action, gadgets and intrigue--this is not a bad thing, but the overall result is you care about the characters less (they're distanced) and you have more interest in the mechanics of the supernatural. Those who enjoy Butcher's books might want to try STALKING THE UNICORN by Mike Resnick, about a gumshoe who gets hired by goblin to find a kidnapped unicorn. For those who like both Hamilton and Butcher, I also reccomend Tanya Huff's Vampire series. There a tough lady PI teams up with a romance-writing vampire to hunt down some supernatural baddies.

I'm intrigued to see where Dresden's story is going. Perhaps my biggest gripe with the whole book was that at the end the hero appears to be in deeper problems than he was at the beginning and I want to know what happens. But, that's the curse of series books...guess I'll just have to wait for the next one.

"Grave Peril", book three of the Dresden Files, is the best of the three books. Wizard Harry Dresden's world is never boring, but this book,(complete with tortured ghosts, evil god-mothers, rampaging vampires, and old enemies bent on revenge)is SO MUCH FUN!!! The three books that make up this series have some common characters, but each will pretty much stand alone, and you won't be lost if this is the first "Dresden" book you read. (Trust me, you will be combing the shelves for "Storm Front" and "Fool Moon" if you read this latest offering).
Great imagination, plotting, character development, and yes - (Thank you Jesus)- the man can write. Good Luck, Jim Butcher!! I hope this book catches fire, and you can continue to supply us with your wonderful tales for a long time to come.

I have mixed feelings on this third edition in the Dresden Files. There were elements I really liked, and then there were elements that drove me crazy. I'm not going to recap the previous stories as there are numerous books in the series and that would get to be a book in itself.

Harry Dresden is a wizard. Not the kind that does cheap magic tricks, but an actual wizard who casts spells and performs other feats of magic, and he just so happens to be listed in the telephone book, but no parties please. He's protected Chicago from lots of evil and this time is no different. Ghosts are going crazy and attacking people outside of the Nevernever (the magical realm). This is causing a flux in the barrier between our world and theirs and is causing some real problems. Particularly when a demon is on the loose and seems to be after Harry and his friends in addition to these problematic ghosts.

If this wasn't enough, Harry and his friend Michael (a Fist of God with an impressive sword) after trying to fight these foes also have to take on some vampires. The lead of the Red Council is mad at Harry and wants to make his life miserable. Another woman who wants to make him miserable is his Fey Godmother. Harry should really learn to stay out of trouble, but unfortunately he needs to solve this mess and rescue the good guys before he finds himself killed. It just seems like he's up again insurmountable odds.

I have some characters I like in this book and some that I don't. Harry's an all around pretty cool character. But for some reason Butcher gives him a new "phrase" in this book and makes him act like someone who's heard a bad joke they like and wants to make sure everyone hears it. In this case, the phrase was "Hells Bells" and he uses it almost every page (and sometimes two a page) in the second half of the book. I may be exaggerating a little bit about the amount, but not much. Otherwise Butcher cuts down on describing every aspect of Harry's clothes and focuses more on the important details, which I think is better since Harry is the narrator and wouldn't be that focused on himself.

A new character in this novel, Michael, I'm not particularly fond of. When he's not talking, he's a pretty awesome guy. However, being the Fist of God, when he talks, it is very preachy. After awhile I got tired of him telling Harry not to curse in front of him. He's married to quite the dragon as well. The rest of the characters in the novel were pretty well done. I especially like the vampires from the White Court.

Butcher is pretty good at description. So much so that at times you feel you're reading the setting for a role playing game because its almost like the story is being set up for you to play. This description can get him in trouble though (at least in my opinion) because when it comes to describing girls in this novel, I don't think there's ever been an ugly or one or even one that's merely average. They're all gorgeous which just doesn't seem very realistic. He does do a good narration though from the point of Dresden, so I'll forgive his flaws.

This was a pretty good story, it was just some of the elements I can't stand. If he had focused more on the plot line then some of the repetitive elements of characters and descriptions, this could have been an excellent story. As it is, I still plan on continuing with the series.


Grave Peril
Copyright 2001
378 pages

Review by M. Reynard 2010

I have to say, I am a sucker for books in this genre, so when a friend recommended them, I gave the first 3 books in the series a try. Wow. Great read, from the snarky main character, to the well-rounded cast surrounding Harry Dresden, wizard-for-hire. The third book, Grave Peril, is by far the best of the first three in the series. There is still humor, still that sparkling wit, but there is a growing sense of maturity, not only in the characters, but in Mr. Butcher's writing.

All in all, a very enjoyable series. And I've just come back for the other three books. If you're a fan of Glenn Cook, or Tanya Huff, P. N. Elrod, or to a certain extent, Laurell K Hamilton, you'll enjoy this series immensely.

Jim Butcher definitely raises the bar with "Grave Peril," the third installment of "The Dresden Files." I gave this one four stars as a comparison to books of the genre, not all books.

The basic premise has Harry running around Chicago trying to find out why so many ghosts and spooks have breached the barrier between our world and that of the 'Nevernever' where all kinds of creatures reside. The story ties in a previous case involving a sorceror, as well as an extended sequence at the vampire's masquerade ball. During the course of the adventure, those close to Harry are either possessed or attacked in some way by a spirit dubbed 'The Nightmare' and even Harry succumbs at one point.

What I like about this series is the mixture of horror, mystery and dark comedy. The plots have improved with each book, although they always seem to be personal involving Harry in some way. I like his descriptions of the various entities, and the rules that bind them. Harry gets a new ally in Michael Carpenter, a sort of holy knight with a special sword, although no explanation is given how these two got together. Harry's love interest, Susan, also has a strong role. Murphy has a couple key scenes, but she's out of the way much of the book. There are also various shadow characters such as Thomas the vampire, Lydia with Cassandra's Tears, Justine the victim, Lea the fairie 'sidhe' godmother of Harry, and enemies like the evil Kravos, and vampire siblings Kyle and Kelly. Bianca is both the sexiest and foulest vampire one will ever meet.

Since the narration is told from Harry's point of view, we never get a lot of development of the other characters, but their outward emotions are clear, even if one never quite knows what trick they might pull next. Harry, on the other hand, is developing into a balanced character, with admirable traits and flaws like anyone. He is full of emotion, and tries to do what's right, but he recognizes his own shadow side.

As usual, the sensual descriptions of magic are interesting, and the extended action at the vampire party is a page-turner. Butcher paints the characters into a corner time and again, and manages to let them figure interesting ways out of their predicaments. Harry not only uses magic, but also his brain and body.

In the end, their is both a sense of finality and continuity, as the plot is resolved, but the story of Harry and his friend's (and enemies) lives will figure into future tales.