A review by cassiedevay
Peace Talks by Jim Butcher

3.75

 

Peace Talks had a difficult job. It was the first mainline entry into the series following Skin Game, arguably one of the best books in the series thus far (second only to Changes in my opinion). Whether or not it did this, I’m still not entirely sure. I’ll probably need to read Battle Ground to get a full grasp on where this book succeeded or failed. Because for once, this is a Dresden book that doesn’t stand on it’s own. That alone makes this book stand out from the rest of the series thus far, by extension making it very hard to gauge within the wider context of the series. It just feels incredibly different, breaking at this point, 15 books worth of tradition. 

The standard formula for a Dresden book is, a decent chunk of time has passed since the last one, Dresden’s doing something small, a thing happens, Dresden has a shit couple of days, then we get a final chapter which wraps up the book, and sets up what Harry will be doing in his time between books. And arguably, this book does follow that structure to the letter. Except we know the next book is an hour later, not a year. 

This leads to some mild issues in my opinion. The first of which is that a lot of stuff that’s set up as part of this story, is left entirely unresolved. This includes the main villain, who’s only introduced in the final act of the story. Speaking of the final act, I wasn’t all that into it. The big fight Harry has towards the end has really strong emotional beats, but it does also feel like we’re retreading ground with that particular relationship being strained, albeit in a much more interesting way this time. 

The pacing also feels a tiny bit off in this one. Not a whole lot really happens. Most of the book is concerned with the political aspects of the world, which, while being incredibly interesting, just doesn’t really fit the vibe of the series thus far. Long term, this is probably going to pay off in spades, since it feels like we’re seeing the endgame for the series beginning to fall into place. 

It was a lot of fun seeing the White Council return to focus, who’ve been absent since Changes, as their reunion with Harry has been getting built up for the last two books. And lo and behold, the more things change, the more they stay the same. They’re still the same group of sanctimonious assholes who seem to constantly have horse blinders on. I enjoy the White Council’s presence, but the lack of nuance that some of them have, is getting to be tiresome after 16 books. I’d expect Merlin to have at least an ounce of good characterization, especially given how often he’s an antagonist, but thus far, he’s just a total prick, with little to no actual justification for it anymore. When we started the series, it made sense, but for fuck sake, even Morgan came around. MORGAN. And he was the king of dickheads for 11 whole books. 

Ebenezer was a highlight, as per usual, especially getting to watch him and Harry struggle against each other in relation to Maggie. As I said in my review for Brief Cases, I really enjoyed seeing Harry as a dad, and seeing Thomas as an uncle was really cute. 

In terms of plot, this is probably the single most tense book in the series. Any type of tension you can think of, this book has it and then some. From the first few chapters this book constantly feels wired to blow, but you never know which bomb it is that’s gonna go off first. Harry is constantly on the verge of getting caught in a major fracas, either at the hands of enemies, or his erstwhile allies in the White Court. It’s great. 

Thanks to this, it’s yet another page turner, and unlike some of the books in the series, it’s a page turner from the word go. 

Overall, I don’t have too much to say about the book, as a lot of my feelings are in escrow while I wait to see how some of the dominos fall in the next book. Given the slightly off pacing, but overall enjoyability of the book, I’d rate this a 3.75/5. It’s closer in quality to some of the early books, like Death Masks, and, if not for the huge amount of characters, would feel a tiny bit out of place in this era of Dresden.