Cold Days

Cold Days sees Harry Dresden back in the land of the living a year after he was shot and assumed dead. Taking up his role of the Winter Knight, his first mission from Queen Mab is to kill a high ranking member of the faerie court – an immortal, no less. Things take a turn for the even more complicated when a mysterious new enemy causes Harry to doubt all he knows and his investigation takes him to places he could never have imagined.

Cold Days is a welcome return to form after the directionless ‘filler' novel that was Ghost Story. Harry is back in magical action with most of the old faces and some new, unexpected allies. Jim Butcher also seems to have re-found his feet and the book has the pace you would normally expect from a Dresden File story, as well as the mix of humour and horror.

Harry is reunited on the mortal plane with his friends, and Cold Days is as much about their journeys as it is Harry’s. Thomas and Murphy have changed dramatically since the end of Changes and losing Harry, and Butcher uses Harry’s return to life as the catalyst to gently start breathing life back into them. Thomas’ change in particular is highlighted with a very sweet moment near the end of the book.

Butcher’s treatment of Molly and Butters and how their lives change without the constant influence of Harry is a cracking example of character development; so much so that you get the urge to high-five the characters.

Readers familiar with the series will know that every few books we have one that really pushes the series forward into new territory, and Cold Days is one of those. It's the 14th novel in the series and Butcher finally starts to answer some questions which have underlined the previous books. Plot threads are tied together and we’re given a clue as to where the rest of the series is starting to head.

Butcher has also re-found his knack of the kick-in-the-solar-plexus ending, which I recommend you don’t read on public transport as your gasping and subsequent sniffling will distract other passengers.