Dragon Quill

Okay, so.

Last book, despite its flaws, actually had one of the more coherent and workable plots I’ve seen. This book is the usual disaster, only worse because it’s a detective story so you’re supposed to have some clue what’s going on before the end.

Let’s just consider the central conceit (okay, first let’s pretend the central conceit isn’t “haha i got to call a woman a swear word! it’s a pun lol.”), which is that there’s werewolf killings but when Harry tries to investigate it there ends up being a giant pileup of all the different types of werewolf by amazing coincidence.

This actually could work if we give a connection between them.

(more…)

Harry then promptly wakes up to Murphy hovering over him and begins to whine about being shot. (more…)

Harry heads off and finds the dead spellwolves. AWKWARD GINDER got his stupid ginger face shot off! That’ll show them for running over the author’s dog on their way over to sleep with his wife or whatever they did that pissed him off so much. FAT DUDE bled out.

CRAZY BITCH? Well, she naturally transformed back into something with tits.

naked but for a business skirt soaked in blood.

Yes Harry, you only mentioned that literally every time she showed up. (more…)

“Okay,” I said, fear making my voice weak. “This is bad. This is very, very bad.”
“Wish I had my pistol,” Murphy said, her tone resolute. “I wish we’d had some more time to talk things out, Harry.”
I glanced over at Tera. One of the Alphas, the mouse-haired girl in her wolf-shape, was leaning against her and whimpering. “Close your eyes,” Tera said softly and covered the little wolf’s eyes with her hand.
Her amber eyes met mine, without hope, without any sparkle of life.

It’s interesting to contrast everyone here. Harry’s dialogue is bad writing and reads like a joke. Murphy’s is cliche but decent, and Tera continues to somehow exist in parallel to the rest with her own concerns and people, as if she’s an actual person and not a Harry satellite. (more…)

The barrel of Denton’s gun looked bigger and deeper than the national debt

Harry, sometimes you need to just accept you’re not very good at metaphors, noir-style or not. (more…)

Last time, Freezer Feline juuuuuuuuuuuust so happened to aim his laser scope next to Harry’s head while telling Denton that Harry is definitely out there somewhere and to get looking. (more…)

Harry opens this chapter insisting that the fact the babywolf pack and Tera haven’t shown up already means he’s definitely totally all on his own, which is how it always is for wizards because they’re so special, but this time it’s horrible because he’s horribly crippled and actually needs the help.

Wizards of my level of skill and strength (well, my usual levels) are few and far between-maybe no more than two dozen in the United States, with a slightly higher concentration of them in Europe, Africa, and Asia.

This actually sounds somewhat progressive until you think a split second too long and remember the relative populations of each. Also, apparently the entire rest of the Americas has no wizards of note/in the Harry Dresden universe the US annexed everybody and now spans two continents. (more…)

Welp, Harry heads off to Susan again for more blather about her being his feminine girlfriend.

a white T-shirt blazoned with the words, EAT IT? I WOULDN’T SIT ON IT; It was one of mine.

Anyone else know what that means?

Anyway, she’s been crying because she girl, he man.

Harry recaps that they soulgazed that time and she fainted, BUT does say some positive stuff now about what he saw.

I’d seen passion, like I’d rarely known in people other than myself.

Maybe about calling women bitches, Harry, but not so much otherwise. (more…)

Harry and Tera start walking and reach Susan eventually.

She hurried over to me, and then I felt Susan’s warmth against me as she slid one of my arms over her shoulder and pressed up against my side. She was wearing jeans that showed off her long legs, and a dark red jacket that complemented her dark skin. Her hair was tied back into a ponytail, and it made her neck look slender and vulnerable. Susan felt soft and warm beyond belief, and smelled clean and delightfully feminine

Harry never stops.

“Your face looks like a sack of purple potatoes,” Susan said, her dark eyes studying me, the lines in her face deepening.
“You say the sweetest things,” I mumbled.

Even when you’d expect it.

It’s easy to forget – Harry certainly seems to manage it – but supposedly Harry was brutalized repeatedly, THEN threw himself out of a moving car, THEN was beaten into a meat puddle to the point that his captors went through the trouble of an IV and blood bag just to keep him from checking out too soon. (more…)

The wolf’s fur was speckled with drops of blood that had beaded on it like rain. The gravel in the alley shone in the half-light from the distant street lamps. The wolf’s muzzle, a little shorter and broader than I had seen on Wild Kingdom, was drawn back, black lips from fangs striped white and red like peppermint…

Harry is really into wolves, isn’t he. I think he’d be the type of furry who wasn’t into the fucking or even maybe bothering with a fursona but just wanted to get eaten by other people. Thank god he’s never seen the internet. (more…)

I clenched my teeth and kicked my legs. The duct tape around my ankles gave way, but it was too late to do me any good.

Okay so the central point last chapter was his legs were still tied therefore he had to go through lots of effort to fake still being tied up completely and was so desperate to get the guy to leave so he’d have time to free himself that he tried Plan Anger The Ragemonster and repeatedly said it was a great idea. But never mind, he could’ve gotten free any time and instead waited until even that wasn’t enough to escape. (more…)

Last time, Harry finally got injured in a way that was actual suffering. Also, in fine noir tradition, he was then rewarded with information – though because he’s a sue he got the whole thing handed to him. Today, he decides to follow that by passing out. (more…)

“Are you sure there’s someone following us?”
Tera glanced back at the traffic behind us. “Two cars back. And three cars behind that one. Two vehicles are following us.”
“How can you tell?” I asked.
Tera turned those odd amber eyes back to me. “They move like predators. They move well.

Yeah noooooooo. Cars move like cars. We easily personify them as predators because they’re big and fast, but if these cars are moving noticeably different than the rest they shouldn’t manage to stay several cars back. Cars being in the middle of a stream of traffic just move like the stream of traffic.

I’m also not convinced being a beast-soul ragemonster would let you move “well” in cars compared to regular drivers. (more…)

The book is 34 chapters total, so we’re now past the halfway point. What do we know?

There’s multiple versions of werewolves in existence, and multiple ones currently around.

Someone is killing people as a wolf. The wolfsoulpeople didn’t do it, the cursewolf couldn’t have done it.

It would make total sense for it to be Tera if this was proper noir, but so far the closest we got to an actual femme fatale was Monica who was motivated by being a good mommy and was totally passive after asking Harry for help. Tera obviously isn’t trying to get her husband killed because she can turn into a giant people-eating wolf and do it herself any time she likes, and I don’t think this is a series that can handle the shades of grey in Tera doing something evil for the sake of love, especially when it’s been going out of its way to prevent her from killing anybody currently.

It would also make total sense for this to be some chessmaster gambit by Marcone, the guy’s evil and he knows magic but not too much, so he could easily set something off that’s more dangerous than he realizes, but Marcone is the best father figure ever so I assume he’s just an innocent victim.

With those two ruled out, I think you can resolve this using a little more outside information – so far we’re missing only one werewolf type, so they must be around too. All other werewolf types don’t fit the killings. Therefore, there’s spellwolves and, given we’re out of werewolves, they’re also the killers. But you’re really not supposed to solve detective stories by using the knowledge the author is a hack.

Now, where were we.

From out in the hallway, there came a scream that no human throat could have made, a sound of such fury and insane anger that it made my stomach roil and my guts shake. Gunfire erupted, not in a rattling series of individual detonations, but in a roar of furious thunder. Bullets shot through the wall, somewhere near me, and smashed out a couple of windows in the special investigations office.

Right! Harry’s in danger, but sadly everyone else is in more danger. (more…)

I tried to make my stunned body respond, to get to my feet, to unleash every ounce of magic at my command to protect Murphy, and to hell with the consequences.

That’s not right.

It’s wholly understandable for someone to care more about people they know than people they don’t but to act upon that is a moral failing of ours. Everyone should matter. And the closer you get to being a superhero, the more important that becomes.

The man who was just murdered has better claim to heroism here – he went toward the people screaming for help, he fought back against the monster that then came after him, and he hit the alarm as teeth tore through him. Harry just stood and watched. (more…)