The police headquarters downtown consists of a sprawling collection of buildings that have sprung up over the years as the need for law enforcement has increased. They don’t match, and they come from a wildly varying selection of styles and designs, but they have somehow adapted themselves into a cohesive whole—much like the force itself. Special Investigations operates out of a big, run-down old building, a huge cube that has managed to hold up solidly in spite of the years, the grime, the smog, and the graffiti sprayed on its walls. It has bars over the windows and the doors and sits hunkered amidst buildings much taller than it, like a faithful old bulldog amidst a crowd of unruly children, struggling to maintain peace and order.

I actually liked this up until he realized that since noir, unneeded metaphor that adds nothing.

It’s nice he doesn’t hate bulldogs, I guess, but then, as a ninety year old man, he probably isn’t even aware of the modern panic and actually does believe proper childrearing involves handing your spawn off to a dog for the day.

The old warhorse of a desk sergeant eyed me as I entered the station, his grey mustache bristling over an impressive jaw.

Seriously the author is just so, so old.

Harry says that he actually cleaned up and put on neat business clothes, though exactly what this involves is unclear beyond not being a western shirt and blue jeans and he’s still got his regular coat which…yeah, you said that was your coat, no one would expect you to have another nice one. Oh, and also his blasting rod is hidden inside it.

He then says that as he goes through the station, I thought I could detect a sense of uneasiness from each of them except last book established Harry is unbelievably bad at reading people.

I guess this is a sort of additional factor to the unreliable narrator thing – from a story perspective, if you’re making your narrator unreliable at random, you lose a lot of your ability to communicate what’s actually going on. I’m pretty sure that the book is trying to use the whole Harry Just Knew thing because it’s easier and simpler than trying to describe it so readers will notice and come to exactly the right conclusion. But when it wants to hide information from the reader, it’s willing to say Harry just knew something totally wrong.

A lot of noir mysteries do have their narrator be totally off-base about how he’s reading people, but those are supposed to actually be describing the situation at the same time so the reader can make up their own mind.

Also a problem is that we’re still stuck in this holding pattern where the police don’t like him for no real reason, and now Harry’s all OMG TEH POLICE DUN LIKE ME WHY? like this is something new. He looks particularly dumb here when he keeps bragging in the narration about how the police think he totally killed a guy for the most coldest mobster ever.

But Harry claims now that he was totally friends with everyone before!

I was used to being seen as one of the good guys, but now the cops were giving me the neutral, professional glances that they would give to a potential criminal, rather than the casual greetings one would give to a comrade in arms.

Mind you, you could do something with a character who was just constantly retconning his life to be great and full of friends who totally like and care about him, but it’d have to have some sort of point, and given this is really depressing, it’d have to be a particularly good one to offset that people generally don’t want to read about that. Him lying to himself about this manages to be even more depressing than the idea he just thinks his existing interactions are friendly, since at least in the latter case he’s somewhat happy with the shitty situation.

I was muttering to myself and deep in my own sleep-deprived thoughts

Also possibly the reason they’re giving you weird looks has to do with you mumbling to yourself like a crazy person.

He then runs into Rodriguez:

a tall, lovely woman, dark of hair and eye, full of mouth, long of leg. She was wearing a tan skirt and jacket with a crisp white blouse. Her raven brows furrowed in consternation until she looked up at me, and then her eyes glowed with a sort of friendly avarice.

This is acceptable because she’s actually his girlfriend.

He asks about her syndication deal, whatever that may be, and apparently it has not happened yet but it may soon. She says the stuff she got from him back in the heartsplosions period really helped, so, anything new? Harry’s all you have no idea how pissed everyone is at me about that. It’s not clear why this is being discussed like it’s a new topic beyond to bring everyone up to speed, because you’d really think his girlfriend would know the police aren’t hiring him to the point he’s broke.

So she kisses all over his neck while asking for any suggestions for where she should hang out with a camera. Actually not sure what that’s considered legally, might be a valid loophole might not. I assume she isn’t trying to get Harry in trouble and if he stops working for the police she can’t weasel more info out of his stupid stammering, so I’m gonna go with valid at least in this universe. Anyway, he says no and she’s all that’s fine let’s do dinner.

Then, because Harry doesn’t really think, he asks her what she’s doing here, and she says she’ll tell if he tells.

I snorted. “Susan, give me a break.”
She let out a little sigh and shook her head. “I’ll call you about dinner, all right?” She started down the stairs past me.
“All right,” I said. “All right.

God Harry’s easy.

He says he’s got a werewolf essay.

“Is that who’s behind the Lobo murders?”

In fairness, it is totally their fault for naming them that. Of course the werewolf essay has to do with the wolf serial killer.

I frowned. “No comment. I thought the FBI was keeping that under wraps.”
“You can’t kill a dozen people and expect no one to notice,” Susan said, her voice sly. “I keep track of the city morgues.”

Look at how she does actual detective work like a good character!

Anyway, she’s there to find out about Murphy getting pushed out.

Why does it concern you and the Arcane?”

Because she’s not an asshole, Harry.

“The most successful preternatural investigator the police department has gets hung out to dry? Even if people don’t believe it, Murphy does a lot of good. If Murphy gets fired, and I can show how the numbers of mysterious crimes and unexplained deaths go up after she leaves, maybe I can get people to listen to papers like the Arcane. And to people like you.”

This suffers a bit by trying to keep her strictly in her niche of everything revolving around the tabloid she works for. It’d make way more sense to say she was hoping to help out Murphy given she agrees Murphy reduces the death rate. Also, what we have currently is circular logic. She wants to prove the stuff she writes for the tabloids is true by writing a thing in the tabloids people won’t believe.

So let’s just say her plan is to start gathering evidence now with the hope of getting Murphy her job back later when a hellgate swallows a bus full of nuns or whatever.

Harry repeats the usual bit: “People don’t want to believe in magic anymore. Or things that go bump in the dark. For the most part, they’re happier not knowing.”

You’re so right, Harry. That’s why there are so many stories about how great it is that you have no idea what just went bump in the dark. This is definitely how humans work and it’s not like there’s an entire subgenre of horror about twisted and bizarre it’d be for knowing not to help.

Harry then says,
“You can’t photograph anything really supernatural,” I pointed out. “The energies around things like that will mess up cameras. Besides, the stuff I’m dealing with right now is too dangerous. You could get hurt.”
“What if I shot from a long way off?” she pressed. “Used a telephoto lens?”

LOOK AT HOW GREAT SHE IS DO YOU SEE WHAT SHE JUST DID THERE SHE TRIED TO ACTUALLY FIGURE OUT HOW THINGS WORK.

If the techbane effect is actually energies that extend outward from the thing itself, rather than the thing just being impossible to photograph like the idea of vampires and mirrors, then a telephoto lens is a brilliant solution. If it isn’t and it’s purely based on how old the technology, than the long-distance lens won’t help but if she digs up old-school cameras she might be able to do something.

Remember last time I talked about photography?

In 1816 Nicéphore Niépce, using paper coated with silver chloride, succeeded in photographing the images formed in a small camera, but the photographs were negatives, darkest where the camera image was lightest and vice versa, and they were not permanent in the sense of being reasonably light-fast; like earlier experimenters, Niépce could find no way to prevent the coating from darkening all over when it was exposed to light for viewing.

We have actual functioning photography that could be used to copy the image produced by this! This is a hundred year old technology. It should work, and while the resulting image will quickly degrade, we can take a picture of that with a more modern camera (flash off, naturally).

And if it’s a combination of the two effects, she can probably get find a way to jam a long-distance lens of some kind onto an ancient camera. She’s smart.

(Hey, what if you just did a camera obscura effect, then took a photo of that? I don’t think camera obscura even counts as technology, it’s just what light does through holes and the two components have existed as long as solid matter has. Assuming the big bang actually is true in a universe with fairies.)

(Oh and also combine it with fiber optics, which are found in some forms in nature. So you could run a long cable of that, get it to project onto the wall, then take a picture. CHECKMATE, MAGIC, SCIENCE WINS AGAIN.)

I shook my head. “No, Susan. I’m not going to tell you anything. It’s for your own good as much as for mine.”

“I mean, if I confirmed that the only way to get working photos was with a telephoto lens, and so you always stayed really far away in the hopes of not having all your pictures be worthless, it’d be way more dangerous than if…..uh…..you….um….IT’S FOR YOUR OWN SAKE OKAY.”

She pressed her lips together. “Fine,” she said, her tone crisp, and went on down the stairs.

Because she was smart enough to know refusing to tell her if being far away would help does nothing to keep her out of danger.

I watched her go, dismayed. It seemed I was making a habit of excluding people from certain brands of information.

I think it’s just a habit of being a raging dick.

Harry recaps that she works at a tabloid.

but once in a while Susan managed to slip in something about the real world of the supernatural, the one that people had forgotten about in favor of Science.

Except, you know, the very fact tabloids exist proves people don’t listen to science.

Anyway he explains she’s great and they’re totally fucking.

I continued up the stairs, my mind a tired muddle of blood-spattered corpses, savage beasts, angry ex-apprentices, and sultry, dark eyes.

Harry tries so ridiculously hard to be noir.

As he heads up to Murphy, Denton the grey is there.

tall and immaculate in his grey suit
…
There were bags under his grey eyes

Also, still bulging veins in his forehead.

Denton subtly tries to tell him he really doesn’t wanna go in the room with Murphy, while talking softly as if it’d be bad if anyone overhead and physically blocking Harry from entering the room and saying that he really doesn’t have anything against Murphy and thinks she’s a good cop.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I told him and started to move again.
He kept up the pressure against my chest. “There’s an agent from Internal Affairs in there with her right now.

LEARN TO TAKE A HINT HARRY

We learn the guy is extra mad from Rodriguez hassling him over that, although I’m not sure if that means that Rodriguez is actually making things worse or if his crankiness is because she’s making it clear there’ll be fallout.

“You really don’t believe, do you?” I asked him. “You don’t believe that I’m a real wizard. You don’t believe in the supernatural.”

“This is…wait, no, this is how everyone I meet acts, not sure why I’m acting like it’s shocking.”

Anyway, he claims that his attitude is practical. If other people believe Harry is a wizard, and those people are CRIMINAL SCUM, then sure, he can see ways Harry is useful and he won’t let his personal beliefs get in the way of that. Also, he thinks Harry’s either slightly unstable or a very intelligent charlatan. and yeah Harry, you’re wandering around a police station muttering to yourself.

Then Denton offers to deliver the essay to her, because he feels a huge kinship with all other straight cops who are good people. Yes. Just hand him the thing.

“I appreciate it, Agent Denton.”
“Phil,” he said. For a second, he almost smiled, but then his face resumed its usual tense expression. “Do you mind if I take a look at it?”

I admit I’m kind of confused who these books are aimed at. Because this is one of those tropes where if you know anything about the source or even other pastiches, of course he’s going to be evil and of course him offering to help will be for backstabbing purposes. And then, not content with the meta hint,

“Oh, hey,” I said casually. “Phil.”
He turned to me and lifted his eyebrows.
“We’re both on the same team here, right? Both of us looking for the killer?”
He nodded.
I nodded back. “What is it that you’re not telling me?”

This doesn’t go anywhere, even though this has just confirmed he’s totally a bad guy, and Harry will go on to fall for the bait like a chump this very chapter. So this is either intentional dramatic irony or the author is assuming none of his readers have any familiarity with noir tropes and aren’t paying attention.

Harry then calls Murphy from a payphone, a species once common in America in the ancient past, and says he left the report with Denton while she gives vague responses due to having the investigator in her office at the moment. Harry ends by telling her to buck up, they’ll do this, which is actually pretty nice of him, but then he wrecks it.

I was vaguely disappointed that I hadn’t gotten to really speak to Murphy, that we hadn’t had the chance to exchange our usual banter.

I promise you, it didn’t bother Murphy.

The awkward redhead kid runs over while Harry’s trying to leave.

He glanced around, his face anxious, and then knelt down beside the window so that he could not be easily observed.

It’s funny cuz he’s a baby FBI.

He asks if he can hire Harry, and says he thinks he knows something but his boss won’t follow up on it because there’s not enough evidence but listen did you know there is this gang and they are called Streetwolves and the killings are Lobo killings so wow much connection and anyway he heard people saying they are spooky spooks also their territory is in the area of the killings.

Continuing the issue of if Harry’s observant or not, Harry sees through this and says Denton totally told him to do this, so obvious. Going by Harry’s track record, that should mean Harris is the secret mastermind who was just tricking Harry into thinking this.

Harris chewed on his lip and nodded. “Yeah, well. Will you do it?”
I sighed. “I guess you can’t go on record as paying my fee, can you?”
It wasn’t really a question.
“Well. No. Officially, you are a suspect source, as a consultant.”
I nodded. “I thought so.”
“Can you do it, Mr. Dresden? Will you?”
I was regretting it even before I spoke. “All right,” I said. “I’ll check it out. But in exchange, tell Denton I want any of the information that the FBI or the Chicago police has on me.”
Harris paled. “You want us to copy your files?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I could get them through the Freedom of Information Act, anyway. I just don’t want to spend the time and postage. Do we have a deal or not?”
“Oh, God. Denton would kill me if he found out. He doesn’t like it when someone bends the rules.”

But…but Harry just said it’s the same stuff he already has access to.

Also he really should’ve focused on getting paid. The guy said he wanted to hire him, and he said he couldn’t go on record as paying, not that there was no way to do it.

“That was stupid, Harry,” I told myself. “You shouldn’t be getting yourself into anything more complicated than you already have.”

No, the stupid part was asking for the files you claim aren’t even that big of a deal rather than a payment when you’re supposedly broke.

Incidentally, every single damn chapter has been ending on Harry saying “now I must X which is terrible wow isn’t my life great did you notice my sarcasm”. I’ve just been cutting it, but know it is irritating as hell.