Summer Knight (Dresden Files)

Once again JB starts off the book with a storm...of raining toads! I like the writing style that creates hard to put down books. Each chapter begins in the middle of a sequence of events that may include a conversation or an action sequence from the previous chapter. Great stuff for fantasy/investigative novelists.

I loved this book! I just started this series, and they keep getting better and better.
There's enough sorcerery and magical characters to make anyone who is a fan of the genre happy, along with the human interactions and betrayal and, ultimately, redemption.

This is one of the best audio book reads of all time. I have listened to many audio books and been bored. This is the first audio book that I have ever listened to that has made me want to buy the Audio book first over the Paperback.

While this one was good, I have to say that my favorite so far has been Death Masks. It had a lot of action, but a huge amount of heart. You get a little torn up when some of the characters don't survive.

I had a really hard time get through Summer Knight - it took me months. The main problems I had are:

1. Dresden is a total idiot in this book. Not only can he not keep up with rent payments and be able to feed himself, but he shows up to meetings in a bathrobe. I personally don't enjoy incompetent characters and having the whole, entire, long book narrated by one was unpleasant for me.

2. Way too many different magical creatures for me. There's wizards, vampires, werewolves, faeries of all sorts, ogres, trolls, pixies, giant animated tree monster thingies, ghouls, oh my!

3. I found the plot to be jumbled, if not incoherent. Everybody wants Dresden and many want him dead and it sort of, supposedly all relates, but not really.

4. A bit too descriptive. For example, a bit too much detail on how curvy the breasts and smooth the skin of this faery and that. Not only descriptive in a somewhat boring way, but repetitive.

The story is great - if you are reading this one, hopefully you've read the previous 3 and have a good idea of the quality of writing. What threw me off and made it very annoying to read was that the Kindle version has a big formatting problem - for some reason, all the italicized words are missing the space before them. So every italicized runs into the previous word. Can you get through it? Sure, but it's annoying as all get out, and I expect more from a professional company like Penguin.

I was dissapointed with the condition of the book. There were a few things about the book's condition that were left out of the description, such as multiple breaks to then spine anda tear to the outside of the spine. The book is still in readable condition however I would have appreciated a more though description of the product.

This one killed my desire to continue any farther into the world of Harry Dresden. I stopped reading about 3/4 of the way through the book and turned into the "Little Engine that couldn't even". I literally said it out loud one day staring down at the book.

"I can't even go on anymore"

"But you spent good money on me, you can't just walk away,"

"DON'T GIVE ME THAT! You know what you did! And I know how this will end if I take you back. I'll finish this book and hope the next one is better. And try to convince myself that maybe things aren't so bad. NO, IT'S OVER!! You used me Dresden! I cared about you but you took everything joyful we had and turned it into a chore. No longer was it "Alright! I have a few free minutes of me time to escape back into the world of wizards and magic." It was more like "Damn, I have to go cut the grass. I'll be back in 45 minutes." You never change, its always the same old stuff all over again."

"Why did you do this? We could've had something together. "

"Just leave, please! I don't want to do this anymore. Let's end it here. We had a good run. Remember Fool moon? Those were good times and I saw such greatness in you. I'm sorry it has to end like this. Take care and get some rest. You look tired."

The fourth book in the series is definitely picking up the pace. It's a great tale of the political machinations of Wizards, Fairies, and Vampires.
I won't repeat what has been said already about plot, but focus on setting readers' expectations.

*** What to Expect

A thrilling tale of a wise-cracking paranormal detective. In this volume Butcher continues in revealing the wonderful world Dresden lives in, this time dealing with the realms of fairie. We also learn more about Harry Dresden's past with tantalising glimpses of what he knows and learns for the first time about himself.
Butcher's writing style is definitely picking up, with crisp and clear characters and a tremendous pace for the plot. As events continually hammer Dresden without respite - political machinations between wizards, faeires, and vampires; ugly personal life, and magical shenanigans - this book will keep you turning the pages.

*** Be aware

While it's not strictly necessary to read the books in order, it certainly helps. Dresden's chivalry can come off as misogynistic at times, but this is a trope of the noir-detective genre.

--
[author:Assaph Mehr|14422472], author of [book:Murder In Absentia|29500700]: A story of Togas, Daggers, and Magic - for lovers of Ancient Rome, Murder Mysteries, and Urban Fantasy.

I just finished this book for the second time. I love the entire series of Harry Dresden. I love how the author pulls it all together, never forgetting a detail he has written, as the books go on to their (sadly) final ending. This book dealt with the fairy queens of summer(Tatiana) and winter(Mab), the mothers (mother summer and mother winter) and the winter ladies (Aurora and Maeve). In this particular book in the series, the winter lady (Aurora) wants to end the entire cycle or summer being high and winter being low and then changing. Unfortunately, she goes about it the wrong way and Harry gets involved big time. I love how Harry, in book 1, starts out pretty dumb and nieve but as the series continues you can see him maturing and learning. I also love all the other characters (Karrin Murphy, Ebeneezer, Michael and Charity, Tatiana and Mab, Harry's godmother "the Leanansidhe, as well and Billy and the werewolves (it DOES sound like the name of a rock band doesn't it?... Harry said this in the book as well.) I will say that I absolutely HATE the Merlin of the White Council. What an @ss! For anyone who loves fantasy and supernatural, this series is definitely for you!

I am not a diehard Dresden fan. I cannot quote each book like a true aficionado. I have my favorite characters and wait impatiently until they appear and hope that I can keep other characters straight. What I can tell you is that the humor and Harry’s bad luck is what keeps me reading this series. Harry, and the spirit that lives in a skull, commonly known as Bob, tend to find humor when there is only death and destruction around them. I am aware that it is not a good thing to read a book solely to see what misfortune will confound Harry, but to be honest, very few breaks present themselves and when they do, there are always some serious strings attached that prevent a happily ever after. Yet, I find myself laughing at the situations that he gets himself into and his snarky comebacks.

Thankfully, Jim Butchers gave a brief recap of Harry’s past or I would have forgotten that he had a serious debt owed to his godmother Lea. Mab, the Winter Queen, has purchased this debt and is offering Harry his release if only he will perform three favors. Of course, it is not as simple as ‘pass the ketchup’, but then again, this would not be a Dresden book if life were easy for the only Wizard in Chicago.

I love faeries since they are seriously evil baddies. Each fae queen has a knight and the first request from Mab is to find out who killed the Summer Knight and recover his mantle. Nope, Harry wants nothing to do with this group yet he is being forced to comply and thus begins a trip into a hell that will bring Harry face to face with Elaine, his first love, the person that he has been mourning.

This is still not enough to confound Harry’s life. He gets involved with changelings and the power struggle between the Summer and Winter Courts and is transported into the eerie Chicago-over-Chicago where a stone table resides that balances the power between the two warring courts.

I got confused somewhere in the middle of this book. Harry comes through with his own wounds – both physical and emotional, and at times, you begin to wonder if Harry can find the strength to carry on. The burdens he carries from previous books begin to catch up with him and he questions his purpose. All Harry needs is hope, a clean apartment, the loyalty of friends and a vampire cure. I guess that last part will have to wait until another book, since that is what drives Harry, as they say to fight another day.

I have conflicting feelings about this series; I liked it well enough to get the first several audiobooks, despite the hideous reading Marsters did on the first 4 or 5 books, but there are also several things I don't like. Wish I could give this one 3 1/2 stars.

Dresden is an interesting character, tho more so when he's not wallowing in extreme angsty guilt about how everything that happens to everyone is his fault. An active conscience is good; going way overboard is just tedious, & Harry crosses the border into Wallowville a lot. His turning into a brain-dead doormat every time a "lady in distress" appears also gets old.

I really like Harry's wry sense of humor, tho at times it seems like he's old enough to've learned to rein it in when being a smart-a$$ could get him or others killed.

I love Bob the Skull. I think he's one of Butcher's more interesting characters, which is a fine trick considering he's limited to a skull & eyelights. Butcher manages to give him more entertaining mannerisms than many of the characters with bodies.

Butcher created a really nifty, unique unicorn in this book --about the creepiest thing ever.

I'm quite sure this will generate considerable screaming, but there a several things I prefer about the tragically truncated SciFi series over the books. Some characters there were vastly superior; Morgan in the books is a complete One-note White Wacko* with no depth or nuances; just an extreme nut job. The African American actor in the series not only provided some color variety but was amazing looking (sue me). The whole TV character was more complex, making a really interesting foil for Harry rather than being just a big bad guy always stuck in the same mode --fanatically hating & wanting to destroy Dresden.

I'm not crazy about the relentlessly cute (come ON, cute earlobes?!?) but basically bitchy Karrin of the books, either. There seems to be a real trend these days that the only way to create a "strong female character" is to make her a total beeyatch. Tiresome. TV Murphy is not only more interesting looking, she's strong without being obnoxious.

I have no trouble not getting all misty-eyed about the sad, tragic loss of Harry's lost first love, Elaine. There's two main reasons for this:

--first, their ages. They were separated at age 16. For as much hoopla & angst as there is about First Young Love, I don't take it seriously. It seldom lasts. I've always thought that if Romeo & Juliet's families had had the sense to keep their mouths shut & not hounded the melodramatic little twerps into suicide, the whole thing would've been over in about 6 months. Romo would've been swiving the Earl's daughter out behind the stable & Julie would've been batting her eyes at the handsome son of the nobleman next door. Problem solved.

--Second...their ages (yeah, that's the same as the first, but this is a different sub-issue). Specifically, having sex at their ages. Call me a hopeless old stick-in-the-mud, but there are few things geechier to me than the thought of 12-16 year olds screwing like minks. Makes me want to scrub my brain with bleach. This is not even taking into account the fact that they were foster siblings; yeah, they first met when they were 10, but....ewwwwww. Just...ewwww.

James Marster's reading has improved. He doesn't heave huge sighs at frequent intervals as if he were about to die from boredom, & there weren't any loud sniffs as if he were about to dribble snot over his lip. This is good. He does do a great job with different voices, especially the goofier ones, like Toot-toot & The Pizza Brigade.

We're still treated to a veritable festival of moist mouth noises, however, a problem that doesn't get better until the next book. At every pause, we get to hear the "slitchy slitchy slitchy" of him swishing spit around in his mouth. NOT appealing. I don't know if the reader or the sound engineer or who is to blame, but it's unconscionable. Come on, folks, you're supposed to be in the biz of producing professional audiobooks!

Another large problem is his pronunciation...SOMEbody should've given the man a dictionary, or something. We have "writhing" as if it rhymed with "teething" (many, many times; folks writhe a lot in Butcher-land); "sotto voce" comes out rhyming with "photo voice," "runes" is "ruins," "foci' is "fokey," and so forth. It's seriously cringe-worthy, about on par with a certain zombie series where the author repeatedly tries to use big words & just misses, instead using words that sound similar but mean something completely different.

Basically, a decent addition to a decent series, tho with issues.

*I find the books to be tiresomely Caucasian; Susan is sort of the token 'person of color,' but she's basically a technicality; she seems to have been written as being of Hispanic mainly for the purposes of sexy descriptions of her nearly or totally unclothed. I mean, since when is Chicago so lily white?? In the next book we finally get a dark person...a literal black Russian. Really?? How many African-Russians are there?

This is the fourth book in the Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher. Harry Dresden is the only wizard detective in Chicago and his life is difficult. In this episode, Dresden is forced to solve the murder of the Summer Knight to avoid punishment by the White Council and to earn help he needs from the Faerie Queens. These books are creative, full of imaginary creatures and features, all while set in the midst of Chicago. Jim Butcher is master of putting the fantastic in the mundane. The books are full of graphic fantasy violence and battles with high stakes. Some of the books have more humor than this one. The audio versions with James Marsters as the narrator are terrific. His voice work contributes a great deal to the story and to my picture of Harry Dresden. I like these books on my MP3 player at the gym. It does not matter if I can’t remember a name or if I skip weeks between listening, it still makes just as much sense and entertains. That may not sound like praise, but it is. The time on the stationary bike passes more quickly and how huge is that? There is enough story that I can pick it up wherever it left off and it is still entertaining. I missed Bob in this one. My preteen and teenage sons liked them as well. I would give it four an half stars if I could!

Summer Knight is book 4 in The Dresden Files series. This novel treats us to the major powerhouses in the Dresden world: the Fae, the White Council, and the Vampires. It’s an illuminating installment both for the readers and Harry.

At the start of Summer Knight we are about 9 months from the events that took place in Grave Peril and war has happened between vampires and wizards. Harry starts out in a bad place, but by the end he’s transformed into a person better able to deal with the pitfalls tossed in front of him. He finally realizes some things and turns to friends. He gained insight and growth as a character.

A lot occurs during this novel. Several new characters are introduced over the course of the murder investigation into the Summer Knight. We are treated to Billy and the wolf pack from Fool Moon. They are around and helping Harry out. Harry finally trusts Deactivate Karen Murphy and shares everything with her. I was also thrilled to finally see him open up and share with Murphy. I was thrilled to finally meet and see the elusive White Council that we have heard of. I liked that we got additional information about Harry’s past and his first love, Elaine, who pops back up. And, last the mythology of the Fae is expanded on abundantly.

I found Summer Knight immensely entertaining and enjoyable. I liked the mystery, diging into Harry’s past, and I loved that Harry finally confided in Murphy.

Rated: 4 Stars

Maybe my favorite so far! This series just keeps getting better and better! I really love James Marsters as the narrator, of course, and I just couldn't wait to keep listening!

Loved learning more about the Fae and that realm, as well as getting to know several other wizards and more about the White Council. There is just so much to learn and explore in this world, and it's really fun watching things unfold. I really enjoyed seeing Billy and the wolves again, as well as Toot Toot! I will say that this series has a big cast of side characters, and while it makes sense that not every character can or should be in every book, it's a little annoying and confusing when secondary characters play a large part in one book, and then aren't even mentioned in passing in the next. For example, Michael was a really big character in book 3, and we don't even get a mention of him in this book. I get he has a new kid, but Harry was clearly suffering, and the book makes mention of Billy (who is presumably less close with Harry) making an effort to pull him out of his funk, and it seems like at least a mention of Michael would have made sense.

This is the first book where I really liked Murphy, and I hope that trend continues. I also surprisingly liked how Harry's ex-flame came back into the picture. The plot was engaging, the mystery was interesting, and I'm definitely pumped to read the next in the series!

This, the 4th book in the Dresden Files series, was a great book.  The story-line takes the reader deep into the world of the Fae.  For me, that made the book infinitely more interesting, as I enjoy that set of mythology. 

Harry Dresden, wizard at large, also doesn’t try to do it all on his own in this book.  Billy and the werewolves play a big part in this book, as does Detective Murphy.  I enjoyed the first books of this series, but got a bit tired of the wizard doing it all on his own.  So, for character development, you have to like the direction Jim Butcher is taking the series.  Harry realizes he cannot to everything on his own.  He needs the help of friends…don’t we all.

Additionally, we get a look into the White Council.  I enjoyed that part of the book.  It adds an additional level of interest to the series, though I still can’t stand Morgan the Warden.

All in all, it’s the best in the series thus far.  I really enjoyed it.

5 of 5 Stars

Upon reading the Dresden Files series, I quickly found in it my new favorite book series. Summer Knight is the fourth book in this mystery, action, and sci-fi blend. This book puts the reader into the mind of Chicago’s only wizard private investigator, Harry Dresden. Harry’s skills lie in finding lost items and investigating the paranormal. To that end, he often comes to the aid of Chicago’s Special Investigations team when there is something, usually murder, which cannot be explained using normal investigative methods. This book begins in a park with toads raining from the sky. Harry soon realizes that the reason for this unusual rain is because trouble is brewing in the faerie courts. A large amount of power has been lost by the summer court, and they ready for war on the court of winter. Winter’s queen relies upon Harry to clear her name and find the lost power before the summer solstice, and the destruction of the earth, happen.
This book gives more insight into the faerie courts, their hierarchy. Though the author, like the fae, does not reveal much to us on this subject, it is a great starting point for the lore of the Dresdenverse (Dresden Universe). This book contains action, gore, suspense, mystery, and, of course, magic. I have read this book, and the others in the series, many times and the lore concerning faeries are my favorites as it is difficult to find much that is concrete on the subject that also goes into the hierarchy of the courts and most everything learned about the fae in this book. I highly recommend this series to any and all who love amazing books, because these books are just that.

Title: Summer Knight
Series Number: Desden Files #4 (Please note that I HIGHLY recommend starting this series with book 3.)
Author: Jim Butcher
(Audio) Narrator: James Marsters

One sentence summary: Harry Dresden tries to overcome the issues resulting from the last book while dealing with depression.

Theme(s): Good v bad v balance. Taking care of oneself in order to have the power to take care of others. Truth and openness are important parts of friendship.

(Audio) Narrator review: Reasonable/ignorable. I wouldn't look up things that he's read. I do equate him with Harry Dresden now though and would be disappointed to have someone else start reading this series.

What I liked:
This book was a direct reaction to problems created by actions taken in the last book. I love the fact that actions are leading to more, fun, and interesting problems. Plus these problems work together to build tension and make the world seem considerably more real and interconnected.

The relationships between the characters continue to grow in natural feeling arcs.

What I disliked:
While there were things I would have liked to see more of, such as Harry taking care of himself more, the lack of such was integral to the plot. I don't think that there was anything I disliked that could be changed without noticeably changing the plot, which is ideal.

Rating: 9/10 – Excellent read. Lives on my bookshelf. Often recommended to friends. Might or might not read again.

I really enjoyed my re-read of this book! I first read this book years ago and liked it then as well but I probably liked it a bit more this time around. This series is up to full speed by the time you get to this book and I just love Harry and the world he lives in. This book was fast paced and really exciting. I actually found myself wanting to listen to it for hours at a time which made it a really quick listen.

Harry starts the book out in a bad place. Things didn't end well for him in the last book and he has spent months locked away trying to find a solution. Then everything gets really interesting. He realizes that he needs to get back in the world and earn a little money just as he receives a visit from Mab, a Fae Queen. The White Council is in town trying to pin the current war on Harry so he has plenty of things to keep him busy.

I really liked seeing the growth of all of the characters. We have really got a chance to get to know most of the characters well by the time we make it to book four and they have been through a lot. And it shows. Harry wants to keep everyone safe and takes it personally if anyone experiences harm on his watch. Karin opens up to Harry a bit at the beginning of the story but it was really fun watching them fight together later in the story.

I loved the narration! This is a book that I think listening to the audio version is a completely different experience. James Marsters is the perfect choice for this series and really makes Harry come to life. The delivery is perfectly paced with the occasional insertion of a well placed sigh. I really almost felt like I was a part of the story as I listened.

I would recommend this book to others. This is the fourth book in the series and I do think that the series should be read in order since each installment builds on the previous books. I can't wait to start the next book as I work my way through this series for a second time.

4 stars

This was a very good story and addition to the series. Poor Harry is having a tough time in this book. After what happened to Susan in the previous book, this book starts out with Harry in a depression of sorts and having trouble keeping things going. He's been trying to find a cure for Susan but that all gets put on hold when he gets pulled into some Fae business. The war between the wizards and the vampire red-court really doesn't help matters, especially since the red-court keeps sending assassins after Harry in an attempt to kill him. So...there's lots of stuff going on and Harry is stuck trying to go up against terrible odds to fix things and save people. He's able to come through and deals with the Fae issue...unfortunately, the war between the vampires and wizards is still an issue that will need to be handled in future books.

Overall, this was a very enjoyable story. Harry is a good guy and I like his straightforward attitude...it's too bad not everyone around him appreciates it as much. The story was very good and fast paced, keeping me engaged in the story. I'd recommend this book/series. :)

* note - I listened to the audio version of this story and James Marsters did a great job with the narration.

Book 4 in the series finds Harry a year after Grave Peril, still mourning his losses, and the Council in a war the Vampires. The conflict he started, and the new reason the Council is looking to fry him. It seems to a cycle from all the previous books, but this time, the Council is far from the biggest source of impending doom. The Summer and Winter Fae are about to bring on Armageddon, and Harry has been hired as the Winter Emissary to try and solve the murder of the Summer Knight that is starting it all. Oh yeah, he has to do this all while avoiding vampire assassins, and garnering approval for the Council to use the Nevermore.
Jim Butcher keeps cycling in new characters to match Harry’s ever growing powers, and using them to reveal more and more of his past. The basic group seems to be in place for the rest of the series, and I look forward to seeing where they end up next. While the basic plot points seem to match from book to book, Butcher’s characters are always new and exciting. I hope to speed through the rest of the series to see where we end up at next.
I couldn’t help but think that I was watching an episode of Lost Girl while reading the book. The Division between the Summer and Winter, matched the television shows Light and Dark side conflicts. This didn’t take anything away from the book, or the television show, since the book came first, but I would recommend this one for anyone that loved the show.
Rate it 4.5 out of 5.
I wouldn’t recommend it as a kicking off point for the series. There are too many references to the previous books, but I would rate it second to Fool Moon as my favorite so far. Death Masks is next on my TBR list, and should be finished within the week, so we can see where Harry ends up next.

In Summer Knight Harry Dresden is tasked by the Queen of the Winter faeries to investigate the death of the knight of the Summer Court. As before this review is long and contains spoilers...pretty much ruins the book.

Summer Knight is honestly a vast improvement from Fool Moon and Grave Peril...after about 150 pages.Regrettably Summer Knight still has a few plot holes. Not as many as previous books but large enough not to be ignored. Harry Dresden isn't nearly as obnoxious though there are enough dated pop-culture references and dad jokes to make me roll my eyes. As well as a dash of misogyny and a bit of racism that just makes me laugh at either the out-of-touchness of the main character, the author, or both.

Summer Knight starts off terribly but understandably so. Harry begins by lying around being emo and worthless because of the events of Grave Peril. I say it's understandable because Harry has shown zero coping skills when it comes to his emotions so this is actually "being in character." It's still a chore getting through all the "woe is me" writing, his pathetic tears of utter defeat, and his childish lashing out at friends and allies who are trying to help him.

After a few chapters of that we are introduced to Queen Mab. Mab reveals she has acquired Harry's debt from his God-mother and offers him a deal. Perform 3 tasks for her and his debt is repaid. He picks which tasks, and no reprisal or pressure will be applied if he refuses a task. First like an idiot Harry doesn't believe she has the debt even though he himself says faeries can't lie. So to prove she has power over him, she magically compels him to stab himself in the hand with a near by letter opener. This is by far the best part of the entire book. I must have re-read it like 5 times. If I knew each book of the Dresden Files had Harry getting a metaphorical slap across the face hidden within the pages as a kind of Easter egg, I would love this series a whole lot more.

Because of Mab's show of force, Harry predictably goes into an inner monologue tyrade about Mab being a bully but I don't think he actually knows what a bully is. If someone stronger than you compels you with threats or actual violence to hand over your money, that's a bully. If you make a deal with a magical loan shark, repeatedly refuse to uphold your end, and they are able to compel you because of the pact you made to impale your own hand, that's the logical conclusion to your terrible life decisions.

The sour note of this chapter is Harry saying "I'll think about helping you," cause there's no way he's gonna let some dame push him around. Mab replies by wasting almost an entire page with the tale of "scorpion and the fox" because investigating crimes for psychotic women is Harry's nature. It's ham-fisted, and clearly only put in because Butcher thought it sounded cool.

A much better way to end it would have been Mab dropping a satchel of gem stones or whatever faeries carry as payment. She even mentions Harry looks like a desperate man, and their
contract says nothing about her incentivizing him to do what she wants. Plus it would be hilarious after making him stab himself to put a wad of $100's in his coat pocket, pat his cheek condescendingly, and tell him to go buy himself something sexy. His machismo could use a little bruising.

Ultimately the fox and the scorpion is even more worthless as we learn later that Mab promises to aid the council in their war against the vampires should Harry successfully assist her. If he refuses the council is prepared to extradite him to the Reds to stand trial for his attack against Bianca.

Mab: "You will do this for me wizard."
Harry: "Why because it's in my nature?"
Mab: "No, because I have you over a barrel. Like seriously. Oh, and if that wasn't enough here's some money so you don't lose your apartment, or office, and can buy food and stuff. Mmkay pumpkin?"

Next it's off to the White Council meeting for more plot holes and racism. First we have Harry meeting other members of the council. One of them is a Native American wizard who's name is I kid you not, "Listens to Wind," and his raccoon familiar.

Harry surprisingly doesn't ask if he can paint with all their colors and instead goes for the "How...do you do?" quip. Oh the wit is so sharp! That must be why my sides are splitting!

If that wasn't enough for you, Ebenezar, Harry's mentor refers to LTW affectionately as "In June Joe." Maybe next we'll have a black wizard Ebenezar refers to as "N word Jim" then the homage to Mark Twain can be complete.(Thanks profanity filter)

As Harry enters the meeting hall he is accosted by Morgan who scans Harry with WardHounds, which are basically bomb sniffing dogs that can detected bombs in addition to whether a person has been en-spelled, or enchanted.

This is then contradicted after the meeting when Morgan accuses Harry of being addicted to Red Court venom.The Reds and the White Council are at war. There's a rumor that the attack on the wizard outpost of Archangel was an inside job. So from that you'd think, "Is target addicted to vampire venom?" would be at the top of the Wardhounds list of things to scan for.

Butcher keeps the "sexual deviant villains" trend going in Summer Knight which makes him 4 for 4. During Harry's investigation he asks Maeve of the winter court to answer some questions. She promises to answer them but only if he has sex with her fae friend Jenny to put a baby in her presumably so they can eat it or raise it to hate Harry. Then responds that she would be more than willing to join them for some menage a trois and sweetens the deal further by saying she'd include as many fae women as he wishes for this encounter. Babies! Babies for everybody!

The misogyny of Harry is still alive and kicking as well. He is approached in the book by Meryl, a changeling who asks for his help to find her missing friend. Harry describes her as both "homely" and "ugly." After rebuking her multiple times and preparing to walk away he only relents after she slaps an envelope of cash in his hands.

In Grave Peril he gave his deadman's talisman to Lydia despite having just met her and wary that she might be a con-artist. He later hesitates in the same book in front of the ghost of Aggatha Hagglethorn because she looked sad and confused...and she's not even alive. In Summer Knight, he jumps immediately to Elaine's request for aid despite his last memories of her being her betraying him after allegedly being en-spelled by Justin DuMore. Hell, in Storm Front he laments that he made Bianca cry and she's a straight up monster.

The thing all these women have in common is they are all beautiful or can make themselves appear beautiful. So ladies remember, if you're pretty Harry Dresden will move mountains to help you. If you're ugly, better bring the benjamins. Hash tag Chivalry.

The book ends with a massive plot hole. Aurora the Summer Lady has enchanted a young girl into a stone statue. She intends to break the enchantment and sacrifice the girl for reasons that aren't important. During Harry's investigation, he is given a magic artifact with the power to despell any enchantment. It has a one time use and Harry mentions that he could use it to help restore Susan's mortality.

The reason this bothers me is Harry and Aurora fight over this artifact. Why does Aurora care? Why does she need it to break her own enchantment?! If Harry hadn't begun this investigation he wouldn't have obtained it for her to steal in the first place. What would she do then?

To end things on a positive note Butcher did a much better job allowing supporting characters a taste of the spot light. He didn't use them this time around to guard bridges, or be rescued. The Alphas are competent in the final battle rather than being immediately removed from play in Fool Moon. Murphy overcomes her PTSD and rises to the challenge helping Harry fight super natural assassins. It genuinely feels like a true partnership. His allies are actually being included in major plot points and it feels like Butcher is finally allowing his supporting characters to do their job aiding the protagonist instead of just being around to be rescued or killed off to make Harry feel guilty.

I hope this is a sign of better things to come for the series.

Note: Even though this is Book 4 in the series, it works mostly OK as a stand alone. There is a significant spoiler for Book 3 (Grave Peril) that is referred to in this book, but if you don’t mind that, then it works fine as a stand alone.

Things continue to intensify for the only phone book listed wizard PI in Chicago, Harry Dresden. After the events of Book 3, Harry has been in a slump. His girlfriend had to leave him and he is guilt-ridden over the reasons why. He’s not taking cases and, quite frankly, not showering often enough. He’s also not paying rent and you can forget about food shopping. However, he does still have friends and one of those friends, Billy the college student werewolf, makes sure he makes it to an appointment on time that could lead to a paying PI case.

This episode in Harry’s life explores the world of the Fae. There’s the Summer Court and the Winter Court and each court has three queens, denoting the rise, peak, and fall of each of the two main seasons. Someone has killed the Winter Knight, a champion of the Winter court who is given great powers to carry out his tasks. Now, Harry has been hired, or rather compelled, to find out who and why. We briefly met Harry’s fairy godmother in the last book and Harry fears few others like he fears her. So I was very interested to see how the other Fae compared the first time I read this book. My enjoyment of the book has not diminished with time. Harry is in for a wild ride!

In the previous books, Harry has briefly mentioned his first girlfriend Elaine. Now, Elaine’s character gets filled out and Harry has to deal with yet more emotions. Plus he has to save the world. I think for Harry, saving the world is easier on him than dealing with emotions. The Fae courts have set Harry and Elaine at odds with each other and that makes things rather interesting. There’s plenty of sneaking about and trickery in order to unravel the mystery.

I like this book quite a bit because we have some demented characters and we don’t always get to damage or kill them. This is to the plot as the fifth taste, umami, is to my tongue. It’s a little sour, a touch sweet, and chunk of it is bitter. Harry can’t undo all the damage they have done. The sweetness is the anticipation (or sometimes merely hope) of these unsavory folks getting trounced eventually. Then, sometimes, the bad guys do get away.

Counter to that, is Harry’s humor. It’s nearly always bravado against something bigger and tougher. It sometimes veers into self-depreciating, but who wouldn’t want to rename the attacking saplings as a chlorofiend? It sounds bigger and nastier. The chuckle here and there helped relieve the tension.

Once Harry has a grasp on what happened to who and why, he then has to figure out how to save the world, literally. The final chapters are big and epic and if I had not come into this series late, I would have been concerned that the series might end with this book here and now. A lot of worthy scenes played out in those last few chapters.

The Narration: James Marsters continues on as the voice of Harry Dresden, and doing it quite well. I feel that he’s a bit more refined in his skill for this book. While I enjoyed his pauses or sighs or light coughs of embarrassment for Harry’s character in Books 1-3, I found there to be quite a bit less of that for this book. I don’t particularly miss it and I think this is more in line with audiobook narration instead of leaning towards radio drama. Marsters did great with all the smug female Fae voices. I continue to enjoy his TootToot fairy voice.

Once again Jim Butcher gives me another great adventure with my favorite wizard. The Dresden series just continues to exceed my expectations at every turn. Having read the book quite a while ago it is something to listen to it and find all the nuances that you may have missed the first time jump out at you. The world continues to evolve and become richer as more about the wizard council and the fairies as well as the vampires is learned.

Harry cannot seem to catch a break. He gets a call from Billy which takes him to a park where frogs seem to be raining down, he is then informed by Billy that he has set up a meeting with a potential client, he is then summoned to a meeting of the White Council, and the Reds are still out for his blood. His year could not possibly get any worse. Or could it?

James Marsters continues to bring life to Harry and his merry band of friends of foes. His narrations is the major reason to listen to these books, besides the fact that the stories are amazing. Continue the story and enjoy!

I don't have much to say that I haven't said already about this series. I'm enjoying it, but it's not crazy good, either. So far, it's been entertaining to go through the first time, but there's nothing in the series that would make me want to read it over and over again.

This has been my second favorite so far, and it did better at shaking up some of the formula. I'm going to keep going and see if Dresden ever learns to stop being an idiot about trusting women who show up on his doorstep to ask for help. Or gets better at wording faerie deals. I mean, really. The guy isn't very good at crossing his t's and dotting his i's when it comes to faeries deals, even though he's constantly getting wrapped up in them.

It has been a while since, but I've read three Harry Dresden books (probably out of order) and this is the only one of them that I remember the title. I liked them all.
This one has a bit of Yin & Yang going on between the Summer Fae (as they prefer) and the Winter Fae. There is a balance of power that has been kept and must be kept or all hell breaks loose; so someone decided that because every good is balanced by an evil they would stop the cycle and stop the evil, but if that means stopping the good also and destroying everything, well, so mote it be.
Harry just has to find out who is tired of the fighting enough to destroy everything. And that's not easy with everything else going on; like finding out that his first love isn't dead and is working for one of the Summer Queens. And another thing Summer's annual reign ends on the summer solstice and the balance of powers Summer Knight and Winter Knight needs to be restored by then or the imbalance will cause chaos everywhere.
Don't want to give any spoilers, but like I said I liked this story.

Storm Front - First book In which Dresden fights Warlock Victor Sells and saves mob boss Johnny Marcone

Fool Moon – Second book in which Dresden fights FBI hexen wolves and Macfinn (werewolf)

Grave Peril – Third book in which Dresden unwittingly sets off a war between the Red court and the white council

Summer Knight – fourth book in which Dresden as emissary to the white court secures passage for the white council in the lands of winter

Death Masks: Book Five of The Dresden Files – Fifth book in which Dresden fights a duel in wriggly field(to a draw...) One of my favorite parts of this series is in this book when Ebeneezer lands a satellite on the red court in retaliation for cheating.

Blood Rites (The Dresden Files, Book 6) – Sixth book in which Raith is overthrown by his daughter who uses him as a puppet.

Dead Beat (The Dresden Files, Book 7) – Seventh book in which Dresden uses a zombiefied T-Rex to save the day. (trust me you’d remember)

Proven Guilty (The Dresden Files, Book 8) – Eighth book in which harry takes molly as his aprentice to save her from certain death at the hands of the Merlin.

White Night (The Dresden Files, Book 9)– Ninth book in which Dresden fights a duel in the white courts(vampires) caves to protect fledgling practitioners of the arts.

Small Favor – Tenth Book in which Dresden accidentally sets up the archive to be kidnapped but manages to free her with some subtle nudging from Queen MAB. (Also sends the elder gruff on a mission to go get a donut)

Turn Coat– Eleventh Book in which dresden is forced by his convictions to help Warden Morgan, Anyway Morgan dies an Honorable death or some such thing.

Changes – Twelfth book in which Dreden kills the entire red court by turning their spell around on them. (oh also he has a kid) This book ends with him being shot.

Ghost Story – Thirteenth book in which Dresden runs around in the form of a Ghost thinking hes dead.

Cold Days – Fourteenth book In Which molly gets the mantle of the winter lady.

Skin Game – fifteenth book in which Dresden “Robs” the Vault of Hades.

Harry Dresden is in deep doodoo--the fact that it's raining frogs on him is the least of his problems. His girlfriend Susan Rodriguez, ace reporter for a supernatural rag mag, is on the cusp of becoming a vampire all because of a little altercation Harry had with the Red Court. The White Council is coming to sit in judgment on him, and to say he doesn't have a lot of friends there would be an understatement. They're miffed because of Harry's fiasco with the Red Court and the looming threat of war, which threat can be easily assuaged--if the Council gives up Harry Dresden. Harry has been a bit of a recluse ever since the incident which ruined Susan's life, but now everyone seems to want him. Queen Mab (yes, that Mab, the Fairy Queen, or one of them) wants to employ Harry, which isn't exactly on Harry's bucket list. But circumstances force him to change his mind, and he agrees to her terms. First up, he has to figure out who killed the Summer Knight, and who's trying to inflame a war between the Summer and Winter Fairy courts.

Harry's walking a thin line here, things are not looking good, and the odds are certainly stacked against him. All he has on his side is a skull named Bob, and the able assistance of some young werewolves. Will that be enough to save his life, help Susan, and keep the White Council from turning him over to the vamps, not to mention preventing an Armageddon of a war whose possible outcomes include a new Ice Age?

Not to mention there's the reappearance of someone who by rights shouldn't be able to reappear, and who completely throws Harry's equilibrium out of whack?

I think this may be my favorite Dresden File book yet. Harry begins the book about as low as he can get, out of step with himself and the world around him. He has to draw on those strengths which make him who he is to overcome this slump and figure out how to save the world.
There are some very interesting new creatures in this volume, as well as some familiar friends. It was interesting to watch Harry's interactions with the White Council, as well as with the various Fairies. This action never stops. If it's not one thing, it's another, and Harry doesn't always come out on top. And yet he perseveres.

I believe by the fourth book, the author has definitely found Harry's voice, and it's deep and rich, and quite powerful. The more you write something, at least in theory, the better you get, and so it is here. Much as I enjoyed the first three books, it's as though the fourth book kicked the character of Harry Dresden into overdrive and took us along for the ride.

This is a can't-be-missed addition to the series. I look forward to reading more.

Summer Knight is where I think The Dresden Files really took off, at least for me. It's a story which moves away, slightly, from the private detective genre and more into the realm of "high fantasy in a modern setting." It introduces the character of Queen Mab, one of the series most enduring characters, and raises the stakes to the point Harry's failure will lead to the slow death of the world.

The premise is Harry has been hired by Queen Mab, ruler of the Winter Fae, to find the murderer of Ronald Reuel the titular Summer Knight. Harry doesn't want to do this but is forced into the job by the White Council lest they revoke his title of wizard and hand him over to the Red Court vampires who still want his blood. Complicating matters further is the return of Harry's childhood romance, Elaine, who is working for the Summer fae.

Part of what I like is it's a story built around the Fair Folk. While they're hardly unused in urban fantasy, it's rare they're as well-developed or nuanced. The Unseelie Court are mostly horrible people, inhuman predators without an ounce of humanity, but they aren't precisely evil either. Well, most of them aren't evil. The Summer Court is supposed to be the "good guys" amongst the fae but they have their dark side too. The book has a lot of cleverness about it, too, with Ronald Reul being the middle initials of J.R.R Tolkien.

Summer Knight makes excellent use of characters and plot developments from previous books to round out the cast. This is the book I started liking Murphy in, for the first time. There's an action scene which takes place involving a Walmart that's a blast. Her character is softened a bit from previous volumes and much more likable. While I was still ill-disposed to her due to the events of Fool Moon, she did a lot to regain my respect.

I liked the relationship between Harry and Elaine, but it's a little too compatible to be interesting. They're childhood friends, both wizards, and neither side has any real reason not to become involved. In this, I'm grateful to have Jim Butcher substitute the very real trauma which passed between them. Even if Harry and Elaine are able to reconcile over what happened years ago, the feelings they've carried from that event stick with them. I'm not a big fan of the Murphy and Harry alternative, though, and am fond of other romance candidates.

The supporting cast is great with several characters I wish had shown up more often in the resulting series. Mab is a particularly awesome because Harry is desperate to be the Good GuyTM with a capital G. Mab, however, represent the necessity of the lesser level. She's vicious, cunning, and wicked but a person who has an important part to play in the world. Forcing Harry to work with her is a source of great drama and tension which reoccurs throughout the series.

Summer Knight is funny, exciting, and filled with excellent world-building. It isn't my favorite of the series but it's a novel I've read on multiple occasions. That's about the highest praise I can give a book. A good book will entertain you for a day. A great one will entertain you for a week.

This is averaging about four or five days so far.

9.5/10

This is the least action packed novel of the series to this point, opting to focus on a plot arc that will be used for the entire series forward. The Summer Knight is dead, and the Winter Court of faerie wants to know who did it because they certainly didn't. Dresden gets in the middle of a power struggle for the faerie world, this right after dealing with his girlfriend vampirism and rejection of his marriage proposal.

This is a great book. Dresden is obviously depressed and messed up by what has happened to Susan and the book's focus on the Fae and not so much the action makes it a perfect introduction to future events. That said, it does have some really good action scenes sprinkled throughout, especially the battle in Wal-Mart.

One of the things I appreciate about this book is the fact that Harry opens himself up much more to Murphy than he did in the past. He spends less time getting cuffed by her and more time being a friend and confidante.

Another thing the book does is introduce the White Council of Wizards. It gives us a glimpse into the politics and people of the organization and, once again, sets up future books.

And that's what I so adore about the Dresden Files is that, once you get into it, every book sets up for another. Every book gives enough exposition that reading them in a marathon is so enjoyable.

A fantastic addition to the series,

Books (from my favorite to least favorite)
1. Summer Knight
2. Grave Peril
3. Storm Front
4. Fool Moon

*Book source ~ Purchased at Audible

Harry Dresden, Wizard Extraordinaire and Private Investigator is in the dumps because his girlfriend has left town to deal with the after effects of being bitten by a Red Court vampire. He needs to get his act together because he needs money for rent and everyday living, but instead the Winter Queen walks into his office and offers him a job he can’t refuse. He has to find the real killer of the Summer Queen’s Summer Knight and clear her name or the two Faerie Courts will go to war. In exchange for doing this one little (yeah, right) thing for her she will grant the White Council passage through her realm while they fight their own war with the Red Court. Oh, and she has taken over his debt to his godmother which means he now owes Mab the debt. Harry has to find a killer, prevent a war that would destroy most of mankind, win safe passage for the White Council and pay off his new debt with the Winter Queen. All in a days work for Chicago’s only wizard.

Guest Reviewers:
A: my 16-yr-old daughter
T: my 14-yr-old son
K: my 13-yr-old son

This series continues to entertain the kids (and me). We all love Harry. The humor is a big hit still, the magic is always interesting and the mystery keeps us guessing.

Many favorite characters are back such as Bob, Murphy, the Alphas, Thomas, Michael and Toot-Toot. In addition to meeting many of the Fae and some Changelings we met Elaine, Harry’s very first love and who he thought was dead. Surprise! We also got to meet many of the White Council and more importantly the wizards of the Senior Council including Ebenezer McCoy who took Harry in when he was a teenager and was his mentor.

Everyone liked the battle with the troll and the Chlorofiend at Walmart and it was unanimous that the big battle at the end was awesome. Everyone enjoyed all of the information pertaining to the Faerie Courts. They did not like many of the Fae, but then who does? The loved meeting the Senior Council. They were very surprised at who killed the Summer Knight.

Favorite quote: “I stretched out my hand, adrenaline and pain giving me plenty of fuel for the magic, and called, 'Ventas servitas!' Wind leapt out in a sudden spurt, seizing the Unraveling and tearing it from Aurora's fingers, sending it spinning through the air toward me. I caught it, stuck my tongue out at Aurora, yelled, 'Meep, meep!' and ran like hell.”

Narration: Marsters is improving as the series goes along. He’s done a much better job in this one than in previous ones though his pronunciations sometimes aren’t quite right.

The ambitious plot of Summer Knight is largely dependent on actions occurring in previous books and too complex to effectively do justice in one book. Readers diving into Harry's world for the first time may want to start with a different title. Those familiar with the series (like me) may also become confused by the multiple characters in Harry Dresden's faerie-war fantasy epic.

Based on Harry's heroic actions at the end of Grave Peril, the Vampires of the Red Court have declared war on the White Council. Meanwhile, the faerie courts of Summer and Winter are gearing up for war after the Winter Knight's murder, which has resulted in a power struggle that could potentially affect mortal kind with a new ice age. Harry Dresden, as usual, is unwittingly thrust in the middle of the faerie conflict after Queen Mab acquires his debt from his faerie godmother Leanansidhe, thereby forcing him to become the Winter Emissary and investigate the Summer Knight's murder to clear Mab's name. To that end, he receives an unexpected and shocking surprise in the form of a visit from the Summer Emissary, his lost love Elaine.

Harry wants no more involvement with faerie-kind--he is too busy wallowing in self-pity and seeking a cure for his girlfriend Susan's vampire curse--but the White Council has decided to hold a vote to determine whether he should be stripped of his Wizard status based on actions in Grave Peril, and the tiebreaker refuses to vote unless Harry can secure the Winter Court's support in their battle with the vampires.

The cast of characters is massive and too confusing to keep track of, and most of them are introduced for the first time in this novel. Faerie-kind abound in the form of foes and allies (Ogres, Trolls, Faerie-Wannabes, Seductress Queens, Plant Monsters, Toot-Toot and his pixie friends). Harry's chief source of aid are the Alphas, young-adult werewolves from Fool Moon, and Detective Karrin Murphy, to whom he (finally!) confesses the whole sordid, supernatural history about himself and the NeverNever.

Maybe it's just me, but having read the first four first Harry Dresden books back to back, I am starting to notice irritating idiosyncrasies that interfered with my enjoyment of the novel (the expletive "Hell's bells" is colorful and quirky, but grates on the nerves when used so repetitiously). Harry's penchant for guilt trips and stumbling headlong into danger because of rookie mistakes (gullibility chief among them) grows tiresome after four books in a row. One hopes the character will develop more maturity in future books. Some of Harry's decisions seem downright foolish for an experienced Wizard, but to be fair, Harry does accept help from friends on this case, a marked departure from his typical lone-wolf style of doing things.

Butcher seems to have a pattern of ending chapters on a high tension note, and following new chapters with a sluggish "explanation" of something before connecting previous threads, like TV episodes that recap the first half of the show after commercial breaks. This makes for bloated narrative, and while the story overall is fast-paced and full of action sequences, the prolonged descriptions can sometimes be tedious, especially towards the end of the book. Harry's last-minute magical escapes (often) seem to come out of left-field as he pulls the proverbial rabbit out of his hat, so to speak. Considering his Wizarding credentials, I would have liked to see him in a more commanding role during some of these magical misadventures.

In comparison to previous novels, Summer Knight just did not hold my interest as much. Perhaps reading the books back-to-back contributed to this lackluster appreciation of the story, but I am not giving up on the series. I will definitely be reading Book 5, but may have to take a break from Dresden's world to decompress first.

Summer Knight sees Harry venture farther into the world and politics of faeries than he’s ever gone before. The balance of power between the two Queens is about to be skewed, something that would have terrible repercussions for everyone. One of the members of the wizards’ Council is nearly rabid in his desire to get rid of Harry, permanently.

I love the faeries of Butcher’s milieu. They range from tiny things that can be baited with pizza to the powerful and inhuman Sidhe. Their bargains color all that they do, and it’s easy to end up on the wrong end of a deal with a faerie.

There’s plenty of danger and adventure in this installment. Murphy is shown taking a larger and more explicit role in helping Harry through a couple of close calls. I do love the scene where she picks up a chainsaw and goes to town on a plant monster. Huge amounts of power are being tossed around, and Harry’s having the worst time of trying to figure out whodunit as a key to stopping the upcoming fae war. It’s fascinating to see what happens when Harry’s at the end of his rope, and how the friends he’s been picking up come to his rescue, or vice versa.

This was an enlightening installment in that we got to learn more about the major powerhouses that make up this universe: the fae, the White Council of wizards, and the vampires. I enjoyed the previous book slightly more than this one because it was high on humour, and even though SUMMER KNIGHT did have its moments, it was primarily plot driven. Additional info about Harry's past comes to light including what went wrong with his first love, Elaine, and his humble beginnings as an apprentice. Learning the ins and the outs of the various courts' politics was interesting, and I'm beginning to look forward to the secondary characters' antics almost as much as Dresden's. James Marsters really brings this series to the next level with his over-the-top creature voices, and by nailing Harry's blasé attitude. NEXT!

Jim Butcher's _Dresedn Files_ are pure, unadulterated fun - not high literature, but cleverly written, noirish fantasy. While _Summer Knight_ is great escapist reading, its not Butcher's best work; were I able, I'd give 3.5 stars. There are several sub-plots that ebb and flow through the story, the central premise that Harry Dresden ("consulting wizard") has been hired to find a mantle that has been taken from a murder victim. Failure to discover whodunnit will have cataclysmic reprocussions for both Dresden as well as the greater Chicago / Great Lakes area and ultimately, the world. That's right: Harry Dresden must save the world.

I found the story to be a bit clunky, as Dresedn stumbles from one supernatural misadventure to the next when the story could have been resolved much earlier were it not for the pinball bouncing around. Even Butcher admits as much when, at end of the book, Dresden says of the lynch-pin character, "She thought she was doing something good. I can see you you'd ... Look, its done." - done being the convoluted series of events that made up the bulk of the story line. Red herrings, false leads and characters who are not what you assume are part of the fun with detective novels, and especially with the _Dresden Files_, but I had expected more of both Dresden and Butcher with this story's resolution.

The description of the action as Dresden works his way out of one tight spot after another - sometimes by wits, sometimes by brute force, somtimes by pure luck is exciting and certainly kept my interest, and is one reason why I will keep reading (and is, I suspect one reason why Butcher is such a popular writer.) The sarcasm and self-depreciating humor likewise endear the character and writer to me, and is why, I suspect, the books have such a huge following as well. Yet even with these charming elements of Butcher's style, the plot got in the way of this being a stronger story.

I have read the whole series, and came back to add a review. I was fortunate enough to hear all of the audio books in this series and they are awesome! James Marsters 'makes' these audio books come alive. He is one of two my favourites (the other being Marc Vietor who reads the Nightside novels by Simon Greene).

Summer Knight is my favorite of the series. I love the epic battle scenes, and in my opinion, it is the shining pinnacle of Jim Butchers talents. For me, the series climaxed here. I have often wished Jim Butcher would have held this book clutched to his chest and published it as the finale to the series, but I understand the need to make a buck as well.

This is not a book you can read out of order, unfortunately. So you will have to deal with the whiney, sniveling Dresden in the first few books. Just move on. It will be worth it. By the way, my favorite moment of any of the series is in Grave Peril and Dresden 'dressed' for the vampire costume ball, It makes me chuckle even now..

This is the fourth book of Jim Butcher's "Dresden Files" series about a six-foot-eight-inch, wisecracking private detective--who is also a powerful wizard. Harry is constantly getting into trouble because he believes strongly in an obligation to protect those who are being victimized by bullies, both magical and mortal. He also has a network of powerful, magical acquaintances, many of whom make impossible "offers you can't refuse." This book is very much the latter. Queen Mab, the Sidhe (faerie) Queen of Winter has a deal with Harry he could not get out of that he must complete three tasks of her choosing for her, and the task that forms the backbone of the plot of this book is to find out who killed the Summer Knight.

This review is primarily about the audio CD. The sound quality is excellent and it is unabridged. It is narrated by actor James Marsters, best known for playing the character Spike, a platinum-blond, British vampire in the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spin-off series Angel, between 1997 and 2004. Marsters does an outstanding job on every part of the reading, making listening in that regard a real pleasure. If he had not been a good reader, it would have been hard for me to sit through the full book--bad readers can destroy one's pleasure in even the most wonderful novel. I am extremely grateful for Mr. Marsters's reading talents not just for their own sake, but because experiencing this novel as an audiobook gave me the opportunity to admire Jim Butcher's writing even more than I did before--which I did not think was possible. In my experience of listening to audio versions of books, very few of them can stand up to the intense focus of being read aloud, which is much slower than reading silently to oneself. This relative snail's pace acts to draw attention to every problem of dialogue, pacing and plot.

I am happy to report that under that intense spotlight, I experienced not a single flaw in this book.

I am not a person who often reads a book more than once--too much to read and far too little time. But this book was definitely worth experiencing twice. And owning this recording means I may listen to it far more times than that in the future.

This is one of the best purchases I ever made.

Wow, what to say about this book? Well it was jam packed with interesting plot and action throughout the whole story. I didn't feel as if there was one dry spot in the story progression. In this book Dresden is faced with Vampires out to kill him, The White Council of Wizards trying to decide what to do with him, A Faerie hiring him to find a murderer, and trying to stop and all out war between the summer and winter faeries. Is there any possible obstacle Jim Butcher missed throwing at his main character Harry Dresden? I couldn't think of one, with all this it would seem that the book should have been overrun with plot changes which would have made it confusing or difficult to follow and that was not the case here.

I can easily say that for me this is the best book in the series so far. Jim butcher has taken Dresden up a notch and not only showed his powers as a wizard, but let us in to see what he really is like. Not sure if that makes sense so let me try to elaborate. In this book we get to see Dresden beaten down constantly, both physically and Emotionally. He continues to carry on to finish what he sets out to do. This drive to keep going when he really should sit down and grab a beer shows what kind of Character Dresden really is. I feel this is shown much more in this book than in previous, and I am more connected with the character after this installment in the series.

I also liked a lot of the other characters in this book as well. Not only do we get to learn a little more about his Faerie Godmother and his bargain, but we get to know more about Murphy. I really like Murphy and even though she is not in the whole story, her main section was wonderful and I enjoyed seeing her develop more.

I feel I am not doing this book justice in my review, and I loved this book. I am just stumped as to what I should say to really talk up the story. The best thing I can think of to say about this book is read it. If you are curious enough to read this review, then just get the book and read it. Hopefully you will understand what I mean and like it as much as I did.

***This review may contain slight spoilers. Please read this review at your OWN risk***

I'm already a fan of the Dresden Files, even though I've only read the first four books so far. To date, Grave Peril is my favorite of the series. Summer Knight is probably my second.

Harry Dresden is Chicago's only practicing wizard and often helps the Chicago police when there are cases that deal with the supernatural. In Summer Knight, Harry is still dealing with the events that happened in the last book, Grave Peril, when he is summoned to the White Council due to an upcoming war that Harry may or may not be responsible for starting. Oops. Things are further complicated when Harry discovers that he has to somehow stop the war and that his beautiful faerie godmother has sold him to one of the opponents in the upcoming battle.

The plot in this book continued to keep me on my toes. There were times when I had to go back and re-read a bit because the plot seemed to move quickly. So much was happening that it was easy to become confused. There was never a dull moment in this book. It made me really feel for Harry and his predicament.

This book focuses more on faeries than any of the others did. While I'm not a huge faerie lover, I was intrigued about the faeries in Harry's world. The true identity of the person responsible for starting the battle between the summer and winter faerie courts was also a nice twist that I'd considered, but hadn't put much thought into actually happening.

As far as characters go, Harry is an easy protagonist to like. He's brave and courageous as well as a comedian. I feel that the bit of comedy from Harry's end helps to keep the books from being too dark. I didn't think there was as many clever lines from Harry as in the previous book, but still enough to be funny and interesting. The events from the last book seem to have made Harry's character a little more serious.

The book is also filled with great side characters, such as the werewolves, particularly Billy (from book 2), Toots, new faerie folk, and Murphy, the head of Chicago's supernatural police department. I especially like how Murphy's relationship with Harry continues to grow closer with the more supernatural forces that she experiences with him.

I missed Michael, who was in the last book, but I can understand why he was MIA during this book. I'm hoping he will make a reappearance when a certain item of his is brought back into his possession.

All in all, I enjoyed Harry's adventures in Summer Knight. It's definitely one of the more exciting of the first books. If you enjoy fantasy and/or the supernatural along with some humor, The Dresden Files and this book is probably for you.

I give it 4 out of 5 stars.

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book from the publisher for this review. These opinions are my own; I was not required to write a positive review, nor was I compensated for this review.

I'd been critical of this series up until this point. Though generally entertaining enough, the Dresden Files didn't seem to excel at any particular thing. The hero seemed to be a lesser version of other sarcastic "urban wizards" written by other authors, the supporting cast was unremarkable (and sometimes downright annoying), and the stories seemed small in scope.

Summer Knight changed all that. This was the first book in the series that gives a taste of the epic potential of Dresden's world, and the mighty foes he is forced to battle. The world of faerie finally allows us to glimpse of how much magic, power and villainy lies beyond the usual elements of scorcery, werewolves and vampires.

After this one I was fully sold on the series, and having read through several more Dresden novels at this point I still look back at Summer Knight as one of my favorites. Butcher's vision becomes realized, and this book sets the tone for some excellent story-telling down the road (though Book 5 is a bit of a slip-up).

I'm also grateful that this was the point the Murphy character became much less annoying. So it's got that going for it too.

I've borrowed a copy of this from the public library. Jim Butcher is one of the great authors I follow that I cannot anticipate what the next installment of Dresden series will consist of. Just like this book. I've thought that this will be a follow up to Grave Peril such as finding a solution to Susan's case, but the story of this book is about the war of the Faeries. Since Harry is the balance of the mortal world and the Never Ever land, he is caught in the feud of the two factions (Summer and Winter Faes) once again. I have enjoyed reading this book but not as much as I have enjoyed Grave Peril. I guess it is because of the absence of Susan. Harry is humorous when romance is in the air. I am hoping that the Unraveling robe that Harry has inherited from Mother Winter (if I am not mistaken) will help him revert Susan's case as this series goes along. Crossing my fingers.

Harry Dresden is in trouble. He's inadvertently started a war between the vampires and the wizards' White Council, his girlfriend has suffered an unplanned magical transformation and he's in danger of being booted out of his house and office. When a new paying job comes along it seems like a great opportunity for Harry to get on top of his troubles...until he finds himself in the middle of another magical war.

Summer Knight, the fourth novel in The Dresden Files, picks up some months after the events of Grave Peril and is the first book in the series to feature extensive continuity call-backs to previous volumes without a huge amount of exposition about what's been going on. Four books and twelve hundred pages into the series, I guess Butcher decided it was time to stop catering for newcomers and get on with business.

Having covered evil warlocks, werewolves, vampires and ghosts in the first three books, Butcher explores the faeries of his setting in this volume (though they showed up in the previous book, there's more revealed about them this time around). Making faeries work as threatening forces is tricky in supernatural fiction due to the cliches that come to mind when they show up, but Butcher does a good job here, defining the Sidhe of Dresden's world in some detail as threatening and sometimes malevolent beings who are dangerous and tricky to deal with. Their addition to the story, along with more information about Dresden's wizardly colleagues, expands the scope of the worldbuilding nicely.

Butcher's prose is as enjoyable as ever, with Butcher continuing a nice line in black humour. This book is notably lighter in tone than the dark Grave Peril, but things are still grimmer than in the first two, slighter novels in the series. The continuation of an over-arcing story arc from the third book (which still isn't resolved at the end of this volume) gives a more epic feel to events, with Harry's mission in the book having larger and more important ramifications in the wider conflict and world. It's good to see returning characters like Billy and his werewolf pack, the Alphas, whilst Karrin Murphy returns to the forefront of the action and, as she puts it, successfully kicks some major supernatural arse in one well-realised action sequence.

At this point The Dresden Files is becoming an enjoyable television series in novel form (which makes the failure of the TV version of the series more of a shame, though that may be down to how much they deviated from the source material). Each novel so far has had a satisfying self-contained narrative, but also added to the mythology and, in the third and fourth books, has brought in larger storylines spanning multiple volumes that bring a more epic feel to the series.

Summer Knight (****) is another well-written entry in a highly enjoyable fantasy series. It is available now in the UK and USA.

Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden is my very favorite wizard/private eye ever. In Summer Knight, Harry is mourning Susan and having a rough time of it. He's also got other things to deal with, faeries namely. It seems that Harry just cannot catch a break. He has some people on his side, though, like the werewolves who I have grown to love, and Murphy who I also love, but ultimately it comes down to him.

What I really love about this book (and the series in general) is the emotional and personal development we see in Harry. Harry is just a great guy, and Butcher did an excellent job of making his character a real person for us. I also love the worlds Butcher creates. How does he come up with this stuff? Each supernatural creature has its own world and set of rules. It is completely complicated but yet drawn together to make all the pieces fit so wonderfully and completely together.

Another thing I love about this series is that the plot is constantly evolving and growing. Of course, with 14+ books in the series you have to keep changing things up to keep it fresh, but Butcher is great at throwing in surprises. He ties up the storyline from the current book but leaves you with enough questions that there is no question whether or not you are going to read the next one. I know I've said this in previous reviews, but this is officially one of my favorite series, and I am dreading coming to the end. Luckily, I am only on book #5!

The fourth installment in the Dresden Files series was just as entertaining as the first three! Harry continues to serve as an entertaining character and narrator to his "cases." Like all the other books so far, the pacing is pretty steady, with most of the content being more dialogue driven. As other reviews have stated, this novel is definitely not the best place to jump in to the spiritual world of Chicago. The novel draw heavily from the events of the previous one (Grave Peril) and readers may not fully appreciate Harry's situation, unless they go back a volume. Unfortunately, not too much from the previous novel will be resolved here.

Thinks to look forward to in the novel include (spoilers): 1) Learning more about the sidhe. 2) Finally seeing what the White Council is like. 3) The return of the Alphas from "Fool Moon." 4) Learning more about Harry's past.

Having thoroughly enjoyed Jim Butcher's Storm Front, Fool Moon, and Grave Peril, I couldn't wait to sink my teeth into the fourth installment, Summer Knight.

The Dresden Files book sequence has become one of the most popular series in the speculative fiction genre, at least on this side of the Atlantic. Though, so far, the series has been a bit formulaic and episodic in format, the misadventures of the wizard Harry Dresden have made for entertaining and fun-filled reads. Even better, most fans seem to agree that Summer Knight is the point where the series truly takes off.

Now done with the novel, I can confirm the fact that Butcher elevated his game, bringing the Dresden Files to a higher level and setting the stage for a lot of fireworks to come!

Here's the blurb:

Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden is a very powerful wizard and a dedicated private eye. He is also a wise cracking trouble magnet.

Fueled by a tempest of guilt, sleep deprivation, malnutrition, bad temper and frankly awful personal grooming. Harry is hurtling toward oblivion. According to Harry that is nobody's business but his own.

The Winter Queen of Faerie manipulates him into accepting a case to solve a murder and stop a war between the courts of Summer and Winter that could have literally earth shattering consequences. His own soul is up for grabs. Dresden must dig deep to discover that at time a willingness to accept a little help from your friends, be they a cub pack of werewolves, old loves in sheep's clothing, or a battalion of pizza loving dewdrop fairies, is a very good thing.

Summer Knight features the first-person narrative of the endearing, if frequently inept, only professional wizard in the phonebook, Harry Dresden. As always, although he is never the strongest of light bulbs, I find it impossible not to root for Harry. His heart is in the right place, and his flawed nature makes him one of the most likeable characters out there.

The supporting cast once again gives the story its own distinctive flavor. We finally meet members of the secretive White Council, as well as members of both the Faerie courts. Through these new protagonists, we uncover truths about what the vampires are planning for Harry, and how the faerie conflict puts the entire world into jeopardy. Needless to say, the proverbial shit is about to hit the fan, and the sole wizard in Chicago finds himself right in the middle of it all.

The introduction of new concepts such as the various vampire Courts, the faeries, and the Knights of the Cross in Grave Peril hinted at the fact that this was a series that resounded with a lot more depth than met the eye. The addition of new characters and developments, especially with everything regarding the Summer and Winter Queens of Faerie and their entourages, demonstrates that the Dresden Files sequence is more multilayered than it appears at face value.

Another fast-paced urban fantasy offering, in Summer Knight we see evidence of a bigger, more ambitious overall story arc which promises a lot more to come. The first two volumes were a bit more linear in their approach, while Grave Peril featured quite a few surprises. This fourth installment builds on the previous three, making this one the most satisfying book in the series thus far.

Never quite expected that, but Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files is fast becoming one of my favorite series on the market today. Can't wait to find out what misadventures Harry Dresden will find himself in next!

I have read the first three books of this series and consider this book to be a step back for the series. This is especially disappointing considering that the first three books got progressively better.

Some people will find this book more impressive because we are finally seeing conflicts and battles on an epic scale. No longer is Harry Dresden duking it out with lone sorcerors or mafioso or vampires but now he is going up against magical forces that can destroy mankind as we know it. Personally, I prefer the small-scale plots because they allow the events in the book to be as "realistic" as possible without having to resort to what seems like "deux ex machina" resolutions. It's a bit tiresome for Harry to go up against forces far clearly out of his league and yet have an utter lack of tension because there is no real expectation of failure.

Beyond that, my real criticism of this book is the plot. We were introduced to what feels like dozens of new characters and I could barely keep track of who was who. The plot basically boils down to crazy fairie gone mad. It just didn't cut it for me, and I spent at least half of the book experiencing narrative whiplash. Bottom line, I just didn't like the plot.

I also have to wonder what happened to past characters? Where is Michael in all of this? He was side-by-side with Harry when they were going after a mere ghost in book three but now, when the world is about to end, he is nowhere to be seen. And there isn't even a single mention of him in the book. Instead, Harry is trying to save the world with a bunch of teenager werewolves and changelings. Not that I'm bashing them as characters, but how does that make any sense?

The introduction of Harry's long-lost love, Elaine, is also a bit underwhelming. I didn't expect Harry to make any moves in this book given his love for Susan but I at least expected him to have stronger feelings for her. His emotions towards her in the book seemed very mild, which is odd when the first three books paint her as the love (and betrayal) of his life.

Summer Knight (2000) is the fourth urban fantasy novel in the Dresden Files series, following Grave Peril. In the previous volume, Harry called upon the spirits buried below the Red Court mansion and they took down Bianca. Susan escaped from Bianca as the spirits attacked. Harry finally told Susan that he loves her.

The hospital was so crowded that Harry had to share a room with Charity Carpenter. Despite her ordeal, Charity had plenty of energy to chew out Harry for endangering her husband and her child. However, Michael decided to name the boy child after Harry. Susan sent flowers and called every day, but she stayed away from Harry; her Hunger was too intense to approach him.

In this novel, the White Council comes to Chicago and toads rain down in Lake Meadows Park. When Harry goes over to check the unusual weather, Billy the Werewolf is waiting for him. Billy chastises him for becoming a hermit and then saves his life from a ghoul.

Billy has checked the office before coming to the park. Harry has an eviction notice from the landlord of his office building and an appointment with a Ms. Sommerset at three o'clock. Harry drops Billy off at his apartment and leaves him in Georgia's capable hands. She is bandaging the wounds as Harry drives away.

Harry doesn't have time to go home and freshen up (although he really needs to do so). Instead, he drives to the office. As he enters the doorway, Harry readies his shield bracelet for action, but only finds his prospective client inside.

Ms. Sommerset is both stunningly beautiful and intimidating. Dresden pulls a .44-caliber revolver out of his desk drawer and commands Ms. Sommerset to put her hands flat on the desktop. Then he flicks an iron nail across the desktop toward her hands.

At the last minute, the Fairy jerks back her hand and hastily steps away from the desk. These actions impress her more than anything else Harry has said or done. Now she wants Harry to become her agent and soon informs him that she has acquired his debts from his godmother. Then she states her real name and title: Mab, Queen of Air and Darkness.

The Winter Queen wants Harry to discover who was behind the death of the Summer Knight and also to recover his missing powers. At that moment, the Summer Queen is assuming that Ronald Reuel was killed by Mab's catpaws. The Summer forces are gathering to start the war prior to the Summer Solstice while their strengths are maximized.

The Winter Queen would prefer that this war never occurs. Harry is charged with preventing the war by finding the true perpetrator. The Summer Queen will provide her own emissary to work with him.

In this story, Dresden goes to the White Council conference in an old plaid bathrobe. He claims that Mister -- his cat -- had used his good robe as a litter box (which was probably true) but no one inquired why he hadn't stored the robe in a more secure place. Maybe his attitude toward the Council had a little to do with his careless storage.

Anyway, the Merlin is rather irritated with Harry for starting the war with the Red Court vampires. Others realize that Harry had been lured into a trap and did the only reasonable thing by rescuing the other guests. His old mentor -- Ebenezar McCoy -- advises him on the political maneuvering and Harry survives the Council plots against him. However, Dresden begins to recognize some of the stratagems of the Winter Queen.

Harry enlists Murphy's assistance in retrieving the police reports on the Ronald Reuel case. Yet he is very concerned by the condition of the tough detective. She is having trouble sleeping, suffering from night terrors concerning Kravos and what he did to her. He finally realizes that she needs to face her fears to overcome them and that his protectiveness is not helping.

This story introduces Elaine, whom Harry had thought dead. She is the Summer Queen's emissary, but is closer to Lady Summer, the daughter of the Summer Queen. Harry is happy to know that she survived the fire resulting from his faceoff with his foster father. After she explains her enthrallment by Justin, he feels an unexpected relief that she had not intentionally betrayed him.

This tale has moments of introspection, but is the most action filled story to date. From the first chapter to the last, it involves Harry in situations where his powers are definitely inferior to his opposition. No more blasting away at his enemies; he has to use some subtlety and finesse to accomplish his mission. Somehow, I don't think that this approach will carry over to the next volume.

Highly recommended for Butcher fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of supernatural creatures, Council intrigues, and wizardly manipulations.

-Arthur W. Jordin

Summer Knight is the fourth novel in Jim Butcher's ongoing fantasy/detective noir series, the Dresden Files. Harry Dresden, wizard/private investigator and protagonist, is in a melancholic funk. The events of the previous novel, Grave Peril, resulted in Dresden losing his girlfriend and causing a bloody war between a powerful vampire contingent and Dresden's own community of wizards and witches. Dresden is roped into a job for the Winter Court, a dangerous organization of faeries, and brings him into direct conflict with the Summer Court, the rival faction. Further compounding the issue is that the White Council, the governing body of wizards, is seriously considering turning Dresden over to the vampires in order to stop the war, and condition his survival on securing the good favor of the Winter Court, thus obligating him to take the case.

The plot of Summer Knight may seem a bit confusing and it is (Summer Knight has by far the most ambitious and complex plot so far in the series), but Butcher handles the rival factions and political maneuvering with aplomb. The faeries are yet another classic magical trope that Butcher turns on its head, as he has done in the past with vampires, werewolves, necromancers, demons, etc. Due to Dresden's melancholy, his narrative lacks much of the humor of the previous novels, but Dresden remains witty and clever, even if his occasional humor is much darker. Butcher also expands the role of some side characters, particularly those of the Alphas, a group of werewolves loyal to Dresden, though some side characters, such as Michael Carpenter who played an important role in the previous novel, disappear without a single mention. We also learn more about Dresden's past as he continues to grow as a character.

The Dresden Files are still pretty formulaic in that every novel follows the same basic pattern, and the novels remain fairly predictable (though Butcher does manage one or two nice plot twists or surprises in each novel). I suppose the biggest criticism I have of Summer Knight (and the other novels) is that while Dresden is developed in an emotional sense, he doesn't really seem to learn from his previous mistakes. He still walks headlong into danger regularly, he remains rather gullible (which constantly gets him in trouble), he often misses the obvious. It's good to have a character with flaws, but Dresden is a bright guy, and there's no reason why he can't learn at least a little bit from his past experiences in that regard.

That being said, though, Summer Knight is, like its predecessor novels, a really fun and engaging book, a quick read that is well worth your time. At this point, though, the novels don't really standalone, so make sure you read the first three novels (Storm Front, Fool Moon and Grave Peril) before you pick up Summer Knight. Through the first four novels, Summer Knight is probably my second favorite - it lacks the overall excellence of Fool Moon, but it is, plot-wise, a more solid entry than Storm Front and Grave Peril. If you've liked other Dresden Files novels, you'll definitely like Summer Knight. Recommended.

Finally! A Dresden File I can actually say I enjoyed. While I still think the TV show Dresden is much cooler than the book Dresden, he actually had a pretty exciting story in this installment. Since the books can almost be read as stand alone I'm not going to bother recapping them.

Harry Dresden is a wizard. Really, he's even got an ad in the yellow pages. However, lately he hasn't been to much of a wizard sleuth. After the disappearance of his girlfriend (which he believes is partially his fault) when she is half-turned into a vampire, Harry has sunk into despondency. He's finally drug out of bed when a werewolf friend of his wants him to investigate some raining toads. If its really raining toads they are in trouble.

While there though, an attempt is made on his life and it shakes him up a bit. Also shaky, there is a meeting of the White Council (the wizarding rulers) and its about Harry and what to do with him. Add in a Faerie queen and Harry's definitely got trouble. The Council wants him dead, but they also want safe passage through the Nevernever (faerie realm), Queen Mab wants him to find a murderer for her, and still others want him to help search for a missing half human. He's got a lot on his plate and only a few allies to help him. But if he fails, a war between the faerie courts could destroy Chicago and the world.

Harry as a character is only ok. He is always a guilty mess, somewhat more emotional than one would expect in a hardened wizard, and he is very gullible. After the events that have happened in his life I sometime have trouble believing he could persist with these attributes. He does have his redeeming moments when he actually stops being afraid and start kicking monster butt, but those scenes are hard to come by. I absolutely loved the faeries in this book. They were all interesting and widely complex The difference between the faerie Summer court and Winter court was well done and while they had shades of similarity, you could definitely tell there was a complete different approach to things in each.

Butcher as a writer is way too descriptive. He can take a whole page just to tell you what Harry is wearing; which is kind of strange considering Harry's the narrator and I don't know many people who are that inwardly focused. I was relived to see that in this book there was finally girls who were merely average looking or even a few not attractive ones. In the first three books I think every woman he encountered was astoundingly gorgeous. It was refreshing to have that change in this book. For dialogue the book does pretty well at making real conversations (well as real as you can get regarding magical things). But Hell's Bells Butcher stop having Dresden say Hell's Bells every page! The phrase Stars and Stones is little better as well.

I'll keep reading the series because I did like the overall plot and writing of this book. If Butcher could just iron out the few things that annoy me this series would quickly move up to a five star rating from me. Hopefully they improve as they go.

Summer Knight
Copyright 2002
371 pages

Review by M. Reynard 2010

Lets see, Dresden's last adventure started a war between wizards and vampires, Dresden's love Susan Rodriguez has been infected with the vampirus leaving her a half vamp and he left a lot of dead vampires in his wake. Now Dresden is working to cure Susan before she becomes a full blown vampire. While Dresden toils away in his own depressed world, the Faerie Winter Queen comes a calling for a favor. A favor Dresden can't refuse due to the White Council's insistence while the council decides whether or not the give Dresden to the red court vampires to end the war. That and The queen has bought the debt Dresden owed to his faerie godmother Leanansidhe. Dresden is called upon to represent the Winter Queen and solve the murder of the Summer Queen's Knight. Dresden has the help of his friends the Alpha's, a group of college age werewolf vigilantes and Dresden's former mentor, Wizard Ebenezer McCoy. Dresden must solve the murder before the balance of summer and winter is thrown off and the whole world comes to an end all while the white council decides whether or not to serve him up as a meal to the red court vamps. No pressure, right? Once again Jim Butcher hits it out of the park with Dresden's signature wit, his interesting storyline, fast pace and great characters. I recommend this to any fantasy/sci fi fans, Harry Potter Fans and any readers in general.

In the previous volume of this series, 'Grave Peril,' Harry Dresden's heroics had ruined a relationship, made enemies of just about every vampire in the world, and put all his fellow wizards at considerable risk. It is no surprise to find this volume opening with Harry succumbing to severe depression, hiding in his basement laboratory desperately seeking a cure for Susan's vampire curse, while his life gradually crumbles around him. Nothing is worse than a guilt filled wizard who has given up on housecleaning.
Harry's life being what it is, in no time at all things get very much worse. First, a little old lady turns into a ghoul and nearly eats him, then Queen Mab of the Faerie's Winter Court informs him that she now holds his debt, and then the White Council of the wizards comes to Chicago to have a wee chat with their most wayward member. The only way Harry can avoid becoming toast is to make a deal with (you guessed) Queen Mab herself. This will provide the wizards have another option besides offering Harry up as a blood bag. Mab doesn't want much, she just needs Harry to find out who killed the Summer Knight before Armageddon breaks out all over.
Other than some assistance from a troop of pizza eating pixies, a den of young-adult werewolves, and a few faerie may-not-wannabees, Harry is on his own in this one. Unless you want to count the people (and not quite people) who are trying to kill him as company. Whatever the reason for the murder was, no one wants Harry to find it. Out of the six queens who rule Faerie, one has hired him and the other five just might kill him on sight. Yet he must talk to them all, as well as their supporters. Sometimes it seems that the vampires would have been a better choice.
I grumbled a bit about Harry's haplessness in my review of 'Grave Peril,' and 'Summer Knight' started out the same way. Harry has this compulsion to be a hero. And this continually gets him in trouble. Unlike the previous volume, however, the crises of this one seem to make Harry begin to pull himself back together. He develops enough gumption to keep him from always playing the role of victim, and this makes 'Summer Knight' a very likeable effort. The result is an interesting story with a rich variety of characters. A good read all around.
Hard-boiled, tongue-in-cheek, wizard detectives are a rare commodity, and need to be nurtured. The dash of grittiness that Butcher used is just what is needed to keep the fantasy from becoming overblown. Harry's spell casting is a bit too theatrical for me (everyone else waves a hand, Harry uses a wand AND a staff, as well as shouting in Latin). But a wizard has to do what a wizard has to do. I believe that Jim Butcher has begun to show the quality of which he is capable. This bodes well for the future of the series.

The previous book in the series, Grave Peril, was the kind of book a fan reads just to find out what's happening next with the characters, so it was with some caution that I picked up my copy of Summer Knight. I was, honestly, afraid that the momentum and pure fun Butcher whipped up in the first two Harry Dresden books was destined to only make for a slow, disappointing slide.

And I was very wrong, thankfully.

In Summer Knight Butcher hits that perfect stride between adventure, mystery, a touch of romance and plenty of humor that was off in Grave Peril. It opens with Dresden, nearly mad and driven to his own destruction over the tragedy that befell his girlfriend Susan in the last book, investigating a literal rain of toads at a Chicago park. While there Dresden barely escapes a hit, aided by a werewolf buddy, and returns home to meet a would-be client. Only the client turns out to be none other than the Winter Queen of the Fairies, who has bought his debt to his fairie godmother and in return wants three favors from him.

The first, which he is told he has full permission to decline, is to seek out the true killer of the knight of the Summer court, clearing the Winter Queen's name. But while still considering whether he'll take the task or not Dresden meets with the White Council, part of which is trying to blame him for starting the war between wizards and the Red Court of vampires. The Winter Queen, the Council finds, is willing to give the wizards aid in their fight against the vampires, if Dresden completes a task for them. Conveniently enough the White Council, less friendly than Harry would like to admit to, demands that he fulfill the Winter Queen's task as he never did have a proper quest to become a full wizard in the first place. The quest will kill two birds with one stone, if it doesn't kill Harry first.

Only the quest isn't as simple as find the killer, something neither the White Council nor the Winter Queen (or even the Summer Queen) realize is going on, and Harry, the only one who can find the truth, is facing a full on Fairie War as well as a magical imbalance of the seasons that could rip the mortal world apart.

As always Dresden is in over his head, but is stubborn, sarcastic and determined to do what is right by the people around him, the people who depend on him one way or the other.

Summer Knight comes together with smoothness and wholeness that Grave Peril lacked. The stakes are just as high, the losses potentially just as bad, but the parts all fit together in a way that makes this addition to the Dresden Files an incredibly satisfying read.

Fighting a bad guilt trip and deep in the pits of faerie politics, Dresden has to solve a murder that is most likely going to cause an end-world scenario. No pressure, right?

By now, Harry and his friends have settled into a set of patterns, relying on each other and making a group as a whole which can accomplish anything.

This is the first 'top tier' novel in the Dresden Files. The story whips by and we find ourselves so anxious that we might start to turn the page before we have finished the previous one. This plot sets up some pretty remarkable events, and once again, reading closely will most likely give some insights as to what is coming up in the series.

There is a slight continuity faux pas, in dealing with a grey area of faerie politics, but nothing to torch the book over. The story unfolds like layers of the proverbial onion. There is a lot happening so quick we might miss it, but Butcher is becoming a master at juggling character development and tossing us hints and clues. All the while we follow Harry and root for the underdog, which he almost always is. And we'll continue to stay in his corner, cheering him on.

And as someone who's read everything Dresden I can tell you one thing for a fact: it only continues to get better with each novel.

After three books of battling evil wizards, ghosts, vampires and werewolves, Harry Dresden has a brand-new threat to the world on his plate -- warring faeries.

But worry not -- "Summer Knight" does not descend to drooling over benevolent Tolkienian elves or airy Victorian sprites. Instead, Jim Butcher crafts his fourth Dresden Files adventure-fantasy with plenty of solid action, intriguing characters, wizardly backstabbing, and a brewing supernatural war with plenty of unexpected twists and turns. It's clear that Butcher has hit his stride in this book, turning a merely solid urban fantasy series into one of the best.

It's been nine months since Harry's girlfriend was half-vampirized, and he's spent all that time trying to find a cure. Even worse, the White Council wizards are getting their butts kicked by the Red Court. Oh yes, and it's raining frogs.

The Council is hoping to hand him over to the Red Court in hopes of stopping the war, but he just accepted a case from Queen Mab -- find out who killed the Summer Knight, and stole his power. If he can solve the case, then the Council won't have him killed for peace. And as Harry prepares to do some major-league detective work, he finds an old friend is also involved -- Elaine, his first lover whom he thought he had killed as a teenager.

But Elaine isn't the most surprising thing about his new case -- he finds himself dealing with a little gang of half-fey, hostile wyldfae, pizza-loving sprites, and the various Sidhe royalty from the Summer and Winter Courts. And Harry and his friends are assaulted by some of the nastier creatures from the Nevernever, as he comes closer to finding who murdered the Summer Knight -- and who is trying to destabilize the entire world into eternal summer or winter.

Not many authors can handle the whole "faerie" thing. Most of them come across as twee, drippy, absurd, or just longing for an ethereally beautiful Legolas clone. No thank you.

Fortunately Jim Butcher is not one of those authors, and "Summer Knight" is what faerie-oriented urban fantasy should always be. He handles the world of the fey as adroitly as he previously handled werewolves and various kinds of vampires. Even better, he gives us a deeper look into the heretofore shadowy world of the wizards, by taking us straight into the White Council and introducing readers to its colorful -- and sometimes bizarre -- members.

Even better, this is where Butcher's series transformed from a solid fantasy-noir series to a brilliant fantasy-noir series. The seemingly straightforward mystery story blossoms out into a complex weave of conspiracies, lies, subplots and various potential enemies, all of which are neatly tied together at the end. He builds up a sense of suspense all the way to the grand finale, without losing his sense of humor -- it's pretty terrifying and bloodspattered, but Harry still has enough presence of mind to shriek, "I don't believe in faeries!"

Even Butcher's writing has grown more mature, adding in ethereal details and haunting atmosphere, and even a tinge of horror in some of the scenes. But he hasn't lost his knack for wacky humor ("Generous" TootToot and his little pizza-loving army, including the Star Jump, Loo Tender, Corpse Oral...). And it's dotted with some solid action scenes, where Harry gets beaten up by an ogre, and Murphy defends a Wal-mart from a plant fey... with a chainsaw. You gotta love that part.

Oh yes, and Butcher gets extra points for the Tolkien homage -- a kindly old man named Ronald Reuel, who is described as a "creator of worlds of imagination." Gotta love that, especially in a book with elves.

Harry is wracked with guilt and obsession when the story first begins, and the fact that his fellow wizards seem to hate him doesn't help. So it's nice to see him pulling himself out of his little misery hole, and struggling to overcome some of the nastier hands that fate has dealt him with the help of his werewolf and fey friends. Not to mention Murphy, who still has some nasty psychic scars of her own to deal with, and her own unspoken sorrows to overcome, and a gang of outcast half-fey who struggle to decide whether to be human or faerie.

"Summer Knight" is an intricate little mystery that delves into the beautiful, dark world of the fey, which has been ruined by many lesser urban fantasy authors. But Jim Butcher was just hitting his stride with the fourth Dresden Files novel -- and it only gets better after this.

For the past couple of months or so, I have been indulging myself with The Dresden Files Series. It is pretty much a thriller with a twist. Featuring Harry Dresden, a private detective, who also happened to be the only um... "known" wizard in the mortal world. He also works as a consultant for SI (Special Investigations), which specialised in unsolved cases. He has a ghost who inhabited a skull, named Bob, and a pet cat (that's pretty much abnormal as size), and they live in a basement somewhere in Chicago. The series pretty much pulling me into the story from one book to another and I can't seem to stop! The series, currently, is at it's 11th book in publication. It also has it's own TV Series, if anybody is interested.

So about Summer Knight. The story just continues off from the last book 'Grave Peril', and yes you have to read from the first book cause it would just confuse you if you start reading from middle of nowhere. Harry Dresden faced the White Council for what he did in the last book and is also in the middle of a beginning of a breakdown. (sort of). The Seasons are running havoc, his werewolves friends are his sidekicks, and of course there's a girl involved to make things interesting. To make him more busy, he has to look for a missing girl so he could pay for his rent!

Things I've enjoyed: How the events just won't slow down and fast pace for read. Danger after danger and complication after complication. It's not too much but it's good enough to get through you as a reader and not put it down. Plus Harry just have a good sense of weird humor here and there.

Things I didn't enjoy: Well.. nothing so far.

Reason for reading: I love it! I would like to finish the series hope Jim Butcher won't end it any soon.

Rating: Pretty high. Recommending it to Pre-Us up.

Recommends to: Harry Potter, Laurell K. Hamilton and Tanya Huff fans would love this.

All of the books in this series start out a little slow for my tastes but wow do they end up in a whirl of excitement! I think I read about the final 40% of the book in one sitting while reading the previous 60% in about 5 or 6 sittings. The long setup is necessary of course but I hope as the series progresses that the build up becomes shorter. Still all in all it was a very enjoyable book. If you have already read the first three novels in this series you probably do not need much encouragement to read this, the fourth, book in the series so there is really not much else to say. These are well written overall average paced books which have bits of humor that have me at least laughing out loud at times . . . what else can one ask for in a novel?

"Summer Knight" by Jim Butcher is the fantastic fourth instalment in the Dresden Files series, and it may just be the best book to date. Butcher has once again created a hugely entertaining mix of genres, blending fantasy, mystery, horror and comedy into one witty and compelling tale. "Summer Knight" is a fun-filled and riveting read that had me turning pages all through the night, and I can't recommend it enough!
"Summer Knight" begins with our hero, Harry Dresden, Chicago's only professional wizard, in a deep depression. He has spent nearly all his time of late down in his sub-basement lab, trying to find a way to reverse what happened to his girlfriend Susan, who he lost to the vampires in the last book, "Grave Peril". Not only is he mourning the loss of the woman he had just discovered he loved, he is also dealing with the guilt of starting a deadly war between the White Council of wizards and the Vampire's Red Court. Attempts on Harry's life come almost daily, and he is barely able to survive them in the sorry state he is in. Harry still has a few friends left in the world, including the Alphas, a group of young adult werewolves who we first met in "Fool Moon", and Lieutenant Karrin Murphy, head of Special Investigations in the Chicago PD.
But Harry's few remaining friends aren't going to be able to save him from his own people. The White Council is coming to Chicago to deal with Harry and the mess he has caused with the Vampires, and they are none to pleased with him. And when you factor in Harry's less stellar past with the White Council, it seems Harry may not have to worry about the bad guys at all. Because unless he can figure out something fast, the White Council is going to get rid of Harry permanently.
Then Mab, the Winter Queen of Faerie, makes Harry a proposition he literally can't refuse. All Harry has to do is find out who murdered the Summer Queen's Knight, retrieve what was stolen from him, and prove that Mab isn't responsible. If Harry can do that, Mab will give the White Council free passage through the land of Winter Faerie in the Nevernever, which would give them a huge edge in their war against the vampires. Harry needs to do this to keep himself from being executed by the White Council, but getting involved in faerie politics is a potentially fatal endeavour. Not that Harry has much of a choice in the matter.
So Harry sets about trying to solve the mystery of the Summer Knight's death, enlisting the help of the Alphas and Murphy whenever possible. But someone definitely doesn't want Harry to figure this out. Attacks on Harry and his allies occur with a frightening regularity. In addition, Harry must speak with the five other Queens of Faerie, each of whom might just murder him on sight! With so many complications, Harry has to pull himself together and think fast, which he does. In "Summer Knight" Harry seems to come into his own, finally taking charge and giving the bad guys a run for their money. And it's darn important that he does so, because the fate of the mortal world depends on Harry solving this mystery and preventing the impending war between Summer and Winter!
"Summer Knight" is action-packed and filled with thrills and excitement. The suspense builds to a gripping final showdown that will have readers tearing through the pages. Harry's wonderful self-depreciating sense of humour and dry wit are present throughout, creating the perfect atmosphere for the story. Butcher has penned an absolutely fabulous tale, with a well-thought-out out plot and characters who readers can't help but be intrigued by. "Summer Knight" is an all-around excellent read, and you'll be sorry if you miss it. I guarantee you'll love Harry Dresden and all his adventures, so buy this book today!

"Summer Knight", the fourth Harry Dreseden novel from Jim Butcher, kicks things up a notch for Chicago's favorite (and only) Wizard P.I. This battle isnt' just about Harry living through it, but its about saving all of Chicago and possibly the world. Harry is about as depressed and rundown as could be after the events in "Grave Peril". He is haunted by his failure to save Susan and his obsession with trying to find a 'cure' to remedy that sitution. The vampiress are gunning for him and his own magical "White Council" is about to cast him out or hand him over to the vamps unless he proves his worth. Then his 'godmother' sells his contract to the Summer Queen and what she demands of him makes all the other stuff look like a vacation. This was a great installment in the series. I read through it like I was eating chocolate. The story seemed more cohesive than previous volumes. Dreseden and the wolves were witty and fun. The scene in the Wal-Mart is my favorite of all the Dresden action scenes. That is not to say that this was a perfect book. I was sympathetic the first four or five times Harry sobbed, but after that it felt redundant. I felt for him, really, but it was overkill for this PI to cry so frequently. Also, Bob wasn't in the story enough for my liking! The story could have been a little bit clearer on certain points as well. A few times I got confused over how Dresend put something together and I had to read through it again. Overall this is probably the best in the series thus far and I look forward to my future visists with Harry as I run across him in my TBR stack.

This is the fourth installment in the Dresden files, the series created by the imaginative mind of Jim Butcher. The star of this series is Harry Dresden, Wizard for hire, who lives in Chicago.

In this book, Harry is in real trouble up to his eyeballs. Having already been the cause of a war between the Wizard's White Council and the Vampires Red Court, he is one step from termination if he doesn't do SOMETHING soon to put an end to this war.

But what can one Wizard do on his own? The Winter and Summer Queens of the Fairie empires are both wavering whether or not to side with the Wizards or the Vampires. The Winter Queen has bargained for Harry's debt to his Fairie Godmother and puts him in a position to investigate the death of the Summer Knight.

Even us mortals know it takes a mighty strong entity to kill a Fairie Summer Knight. All Harry has to do is find the killer, return the mantle of power to the rightful owner, but first figure out who that is. Being caught between the Winter and Summer Queens and their Ladies is not somewhere anyone, especially Harry wants to be.

We learn many things from this book: don't think all fairies are nice and kind, most aren't; when it rains toads, it might not be a weather phenomenon; going against both sides in a contest of wills, when all kinds of nasty creatures can be called into service, can be risky; werewolves and tiny fairies love pizza, and saving your neck is a dangerous thing to do without assistance.

Harry gets assistance from some allies he thought were dead or against him. He calls on the werewolves and leads them into danger, but hey, they go willingly, trusting that Harry will lead them to victory and goodness will prevail.

This is a face-paced story with the mortal, Karrin Murphy of Chicago PD, getting in her two-cents worth. For a mortal, Murphy tries to be there for Harry, but she is no match for the bad ghouls. She can hold her own for a while, but humans don't have the strength or stamina to last long against creatures that never seem to stay dead.

One really needs a scorecard to keep track of all the players and the good vs. evil entities keep changing. What is a Wizard to do?

I watched the TV series first, and fell in love. I really looked forward to reading the books, but when I tried, they fell flat. I thought they were poorly written, with a character I much like and predictable plots.

Well, the audio version went on sale, in a buy two get one free, and the I used this book as "filler" so I could get the other two I really wanted.

Then, i listened to it.

Wow, what a difference. The narrator who reads the Dresden books is amazing. The sarcasm that comes through has me laughing out loud. Harry Dresden becomes endearing, quirky and fabulous! The Dresden Files feel like a cross between Harry Potter, Indiana Jones and Constantine (I'm thinking of that movie with Keanu Reeves). The mystical creatures at times are contrived and rather cartoonish, but where I found that at first to be silly and childish, I find rather dark and insidious given the evil inherent in these beings while in the trappings of fairy tales. I think it was the narrator himself who brought these nuances out for me. I have grown fond of Bob and Murphy and Harry and Thomas and the others as the series has gone on. I am almost caught up to the last book, and I will be sad when I have no more to listen to.

Harry Dresden isn't the same after he fights ghosts and vampires in Grave Peril. After Susan leaves town to deal with her new bouts of blood lust, Harry isolates himself from everyone and everything. He has not worked in a long time and is in danger of losing his apartment and his office, but his depression is so strong that he does not care. He hasn't even taken a shower in days! But when the White Council pays him a visit and almost decide to hand over to the vampires, Harry has no choice but to again defend his life. He also has to clean the name of a manipulative faerie who also happens to be the Queen of Air and Darkness. A faerie known as the Summer Knight has been murdered, and Harry has to solve the case to both free himself from the faeries and clear his name for the White Council. There are various twists throughout the novel.

The supernatural beings in this series -- save for the teenage werewolves -- are evil to the core. The faeries, vampires and ghouls are very dark creatures -- nothing benign about these monsters! And that's what makes this series different from the ones authors Laurell K. Hamilton and Charlaine Harris write. Summer Knight is my second favorite book of the Dresden Files (my favorite thus far is Fool Moon). Harry feels like a puppet, for the faeries and the White Council want different things from him. He is more vulnerable in this installment than in the other ones, but still as self-deprecating and goofy as ever. I thought the scene where he tries to speak in Latin to the White Council was hilarious. There are more comic scenes and quips in this installment. The characters are great here, especially Billy and Murphy, and the new characters seem promising. But Michael and Susan are absent in this one. I hope that they will make a comeback soon. I am loving the Dresden Files and I cannot wait to read Death Masks soon.

Very very few books that I read in the category of "mind-candy" receive more than 3 stars. Butcher deserved it, and is making me quickly reconsider him as belonging to the mind-candy list at all!

The wait for this one was a tremendously hard one for me. I was lucky enough to receive the "teaser" from Mr. Butcher via E-mail, and then had to wait. Wait. Wait. It hurt.
For a fun read, this series - about the only wizard in the Chicago Yellow Pages - leaves nothing to be desired. But this fourth book turned everything on its edge, and was absolutely fabulous. A haggard Harry is trying to cope with everything that went so terribly wrong in the third book - not limited to, but including a very bad turn in his love life, the starting of a wizards-vs-vampires war (oops), and quite a bit of disfavour among the wizard's council. And then of course, the fae come to collect on Harry's debt, old (and once murderous) love interests show up, and before you know it - Harry's hip deep again in trouble.

As always, it's Harry's character that keeps you going (that and his air-spirit-trapped-in-a-crystal-skull sidekick, the oversexed Bob). Harry is such a wonderful guy to follow that you can't help but feel for him, even as his winning chivalry gets him deeper and deeper into mess. The mystery itself in this one - who killed one of the Fairy Court's Knights? - is just as interesting, and the Fairy culture that Butcher wove together is skillfully plotted.

This was superb, and if you liked Anita Blake, or Tanya Huff's "Keeper" series, you'll love Harry Dresden.

'Nathan

At a nadir from the events in Grave Peril, Summer Knight takes Harry from lowest point and brings his life back together. We learn more about the youth and making of the most interesting Wizard PI ever written.

This is my favorite Dresden File, and I write this as book number eight was recently released.

What makes this one so great? We get to see Harry work as a detective, and are with him as he makes revelation after revelation across the bad hand of conflicting obligations he is dealt. Stuck with satifying a Faerie Queen, the White Council, his friends, himself, and sort of saving the world, Harry Dresden truly gets his act together and steps up to the challenge.

Butcher wrote this believable with rich details to a break-neck narrative pace. I can't forget the touching emotional scenes or the humorous parts. In short, the multi-layered plot and richness of character in this novel is rare in all fiction. Appreciate it.

Summer Knight also gets away from the vampires and more into the supernatural background behind the world of Harry Dresden, which was a big plus for me. Lots of urban fantasy authors seem stuck at one supernatural aspect, but Butcher breaks that mold.

In conclusion, if you like fantasy and don't have this book, buy it! You'll want to read it again. I don't care if you haven't read the rest of the series, buy it anyway. The book is that good.

Imagine Dick Tracy as a wizard. The protagonist of this novel, the fourth book in the Dresden File series is the unapologetically chivalrous yet lovelorn Harry Dresden, the only wizard in the Chicago Yellow Pages. Dresden, a supernatural gumshoe who lives in his rundown Chicago apartment makes for a fun protagonist. While the series is driven more by a blazing plot than by characters, the characters, too, are multifaceted individuals (for the most part) who learn (or not) from real mistakes. And seriously, who doesn't love a polka-playing Medical Examiner?

As the series progresses, this alternate world becomes more complex and intriguing and the series story arc becomes clearer. In this book, Fairie Queen Mab buys up Harry's debt and forces Harry to act as her knight in a conflict between the Winter and Summer Fairie courts. Non-stop action from the first page!

As always, Butcher's neo-noir style narration is spiced liberally with a warm humor that only enhances the non-stop thrills. He is one of my favorite writers.

Great fun. Outstanding writing. Paced for thrills with no slow spots. Darkly urban, contemporary setting. Magical, colorful characters. What's not to like?

The series is best enjoyed by starting with the first novel, Storm Front.
Storm Front (The Dresden Files, Book 1)

The fourth book of Jim Butcher's "Dresden Files" series continues the adventures of Harry Dresden, Wizard for hire. His girlfriend has left town to deal with issues resulting from book three, and Harry is down in the dumbs. Enter Queen Mab, the Sidhe (faerie) Queen of Winter, with a case for Harry: Find out who killed the Summer Knight. Harry becomes the emissary of Winter.
We see the first gathering of the White Council, and learn some of Harry's allies, such as his second mentor, Ebenezer, along with enemies like Morgan and The Merlin. There is also the shadowy Gatekeeper.
With a battle brewing between the White Council of Wizards and the Red Court of vampires, the wizards need safe passage through the Nevernever world of the faeries. However, there is also a struggle between the faeries of Summer and Winter. Harry must solve the murder and power struggle or be handed over to the vampires by the White Council. There's a lot at stake for poor Harry.
Luckily, Dresden has some allies on the Council, and enlists the aid of the young Alphas, the werewolves from book two. He also begins to regain his friendship with Lt. Karrin Murphy of the Chicago police Special Investigations unit. They have a couple key scenes, including one that involves a fight with an ogre, a ghoul and a plant-monster at a WalMart.
Add to all of this the return of Harry's first lover, the wizard Elaine, plus the various faeries, and we get the makings for a bit of intrigue.
As with his other books, the story is well-paced, with plenty of action along with plot development. Harry's use of magic is always interesting, and his humor carries him (and the reader) through some of the darker periods. There is a good balance of levity with shadow. Harry's character continues to develop, and his talk with Lt. Murphy is a major step forward for him. For the other characters, we mostly see them through Harry's viewpoint, but the way they react to him also reflects some development, if only at a minimal level.
Some of the things I bumped on were the way that characters seem to disappear for large chunks of time. Michael Carpenter, Harry's ally from book three, isn't even mentioned this time. Also the identity of the murdered was no big surprise, but here the who is not as important as the why. There are plenty of twists and surprises to keep a reader guessing.
With book five due out soon, I can only wonder what adventures will come Harry's way next. Will he be able to help Susan? What will become of Elaine? The vampires loom at the edge of twilight, but I suspect that Harry Dresden will be ready.

Can Butcher do no wrong? The man has a real sense of imagination, wonder a fine way of molding a modern hero.
A brief overview. This is the fourth book in the Harry Dresden Files, by newcomer Jim Butcher. Harry Dresden is Chicago's only openly practicing wizard. A member of the White Council, a governing body for wizards, he is down on his luck after his girlfriend Susan gets turned to a vampire in the previous novel. Still searching for a cure he has alienated everyone who cares about him, while still trying to dodge hitman hireed by vampires, and trying to keep out of the way of Morgan a warder for the White Council bent on seeing him pay for past deeds.
In order to truly appreciate this novel you must read the first three. In this novel we see the return of some great characters from the first three novels.
Butcher not only continues to shine more light on the modern day wizard (he introduces the White Council and several of it's key members in the first 4 chapters alone), but he dives into the realms of fairie, with his usual flare.
The novel goes from the political infighting of the White Council, to the potentially earth shattering intrigues of the Courts of Fae and a war that cannot afford to be won or lost by either side.
This is the best out of all the books. Well plotted and well written. I cannot wait to read the next one.

Summer Knight is a fun book, but a person new to the series would miss many nuances. At the very least the third book, Grave Peril, should be read first.

Harry gains some depth of character in this volume. His earlier actions have had consequences and Harry realizes that he must make some things right. The pace builds and Kindle with its "only 7 minutes minutes to read the chapter" notes conspired to keep me reading "just one more chapter" before doing the next chore.

The best recommendation: volume five is downloaded for me to read.

As this book opens, Harry Dresden, Chicago's only wizard, is deeply depressed. For months, he has struggled to find a cure for his girlfriend Susan, bitten by a vampire at the end of book 3 of the Dresden Files. He's let everything else go, including paying the rent and taking a shower, but he's no closer to finding a solution. Little does he know that life is about to get worse. It starts with a rain of toads in Lake Meadow Park south of the Loop and then, to cap off a really crummy day, the new client in Harry's office is Mab, the Winter Queen of Faerie.

She wears a really hot power suit and moderately high heels.

Jim Butcher's the real wizard. From the White Council of Wizards meeting in the McCormick Convention Center to a deadly battle with a foul chlorofiend (plant monster) in the chain link enclosure at Walmart, Butcher enchants with the magical adventures of a wizard who, when the chips are down, taunts his foes with Roadrunner "beep, beep" noises.

Other than that, this is your typical noir, wise-cracking-detective-with-attitude murder mystery set in Chicago. Lots of violence and the occasional werewolf or changling assistant. This book is WICKED good fun.

This is the fourth in the Dresden Files series featuring the cases of Chicago's only Wizard private detective, Harry Dresden. As the novel opens Dresden is facing charges by the White Council stemming from events recounted in earlier novels. Not only are the Wizards of the White Council angry with him but the Vampires of the Red Court want him dead (at least). Even closer to home his love life is even more dismal than before, after finally getting a girl friend, she was nearly turned into a vampire sending Harry on a quest for a cure. As if this isn't enough Harry discovers that this fairy godmother (literal) has handed him over to another fairy, one who wants Dresden's assistance. Reluctantly Dresden finally agrees and finds himself sorting out the mess in both the Nevernever and mundane Chicago aided by werewolves and pizza loving pixies.

Those who are fans of this series are probably quite familiar with the strong ongoing story arc of this series and are aware that they are best when read in order. Those new to the series will want to begin at the beginning (STORM FRONT) and work their way to this one.

Poor Harry! As if anything can get any worse, it does in this installment, Summer Knight. Harry has been wallowing in deep depression and seclusion. He has no money, no food, no nothing. He's about to be evicted and his business is going to the dumps. To make matters worse the Red Court wants his head, and The Wizard Council doesn't mind giving him to vampires so the war (that Harry started) can finally end. Then Queen Mab, Faerie Winter Queen, comes to him for help. Summer Knight has been killed and everybody blames her. She wants Harry to find the killer, retrieve a stolen mantle, and clear her name. It sounds simple enough--at first. But this is Faerie politics, after all, and there is no such thing as smooth sailing when it comes to these folks. Soon our Wizard has to stop a war between the Summer and Winter Courts of the Faerie. If he fails, the victorious in the war will cause catastrophic consequences in the mortal world.
Out of all the four books, this is the most satisfying and entertaining. Butcher--plot wise--is at his strongest here. Some characters do return in this round (Toot, Toot, Murphy, The Alphas), which is a good thing. The story ends with a cliff hanger, though. Somethings brought up since Grave Peril are still not resolved. Over all, it's a good read. Butcher is growing stronger in his writing and style.

The Summer Knight of the faerie is dead, the Winter Queen is blamed and wants Harry to clear her. The White Coucil is in town and wants to serve Harry in a to-go box to the Reds (vampires). It is raining toads and gathering a heck of a snow storm in the middle of June. Someone has hired a hit-ghoul to bump him off. Some strange characters want him to find a missing girl. His fiance is still missing, but his first love is back, and working for the Summer Lady. And, just to make things really fun, Summer and Winter are gathering forces to go to war. If he manages to pull it all off, Harry will be cleared by the White Coucil, one step closer to being free of the faerie for good, he and his friends will be alive, balance will be restored, and the world, as we know it, will be saved.
This book is a rolling thrill ride. It is fun, funny, adventurous, and wildly exciting. Though the danger is very real, the book isn't quite as grim and dark as GRAVE PERIL. Harry has time to take a breather between crises (though no time to get a haircut), and it was good to see old friends like Murphy, Toot Toot and Billy the werewolf. Harry learns to trust them and lean a little when he can't handle everything. himself.

Harry Dresden, our wizard gumshoe is back and up to his neck in trouble again! This time is targeted by the vampire council for destroying their leader in the last book and this causes a war between the wizards and vampires. To save himself from being turnover to the vampires and to stop the war he must solve the murder of Summer faerie's queen summer knight and he must do it or the courts of Summer and Winter will go to war and that's bad for the planet! Butcher's Harry Dresden series is gripping mix
of film noir thrills, fantasy and witty dialogue as Dresden's deadly new case will have him come face to face with a lover from his dark past who betrayad him and now seeks his help and he must deal with the deceptive faerie courts who uses humans as playthings. Butcher's knows how to write action scenes like a deadly battle between Harry and cop friend Murph against a deadly ghoul hitwoman and lethal plant monster that comes to life
and incredible battle between the faerie courts! Butcher is giving Laurell Hamilton and Tanya Huff some compeition in the dark fantasy detective genre. I hope Butcher is writing the next Dresden's adventure because this one was a corker!

The latest installment of the Dresden Files finds Wizard Harry Dresden in a faerie war between summer and winter, with more than just finding a killer at stake.
The previous book in this series was almost painful to read as Harry tangled with the local vampires to a cost that was almost impossible for him to bear. At the start of this book he is still in deep depression. However, this wallowing doesn't last long, as Harry is confronted with a client (and possible income) that can't be refused.
These books are intelligent and well written, with strong characters that you care about. It is magic set inside the world we know, however the action in this book mostly takes place outside this world in contrast to the other installments so far, which take place in and around `normal' Chicago.
It will be interesting to see where this character goes in the next book, as all the events in these books are built on each other. They are best read in the correct sequence to get the best out of them and the careful character development that has been built into them.
If you like your fantasy mixed with mystery this is a series you should pick up.

Author Jim Butcher deserves a round of applause for continuing to improve on his Dresden Files series. With each book so far, Butcher has not only developed the character of Harry Dresden, Chicago's only Wizard for Hire, but the alternate universe in which he lives. This time around, Harry has to deal with the repercussions of the war he started with the vampire Red Court, but also the wizard White Council -- who are none to happy with him -- and the Sidhe (fairies, although they don't like to be called that) Queens of Winter and Summer. Butcher is treading a well-worn path here considering some of these same elements appear in Laurell K. Hamilton's work, but here Butcher is going for more of the mystery and politics than the sex and intrigue of Hamilton's writings, and it works. Soon, Harry finds himself pulled into the political machinations of the Summer and Winter courts while at the same time trying to fend of an otherworldly assassin and protect his skin from the White Council. The book runs along at a breakneck speed and the ending is well worth the trip. I look forward to reading the next book in the series.

When we last saw our intrepid hero, wizard Harry Dresden, he had just lost his girlfriend to the vampires, and been threatened by the renewed involvement in his life by his fairy godmother. Since then, things have gotten worse. He's depressed, he isn't working, his friends are avoiding him, and he's about to be evicted from his office. Enter the solution: the Winter Queen of Faerie. If Harry will find out who killed the Summer Queen's right-hand knight, he can rid himself of the magical hold of his fairy godmother and maybe save his girlfriend from becoming a full-fledged vampire.
But this means putting himself in harm's way between the two Queens of Faerie and their various minions. Not to mention the fact that the fate of the world rests on the results of his discovery. Once again, we are treated to a madcap tale with oddball characters and strange creatures, twists and turns in plots and motivations, unexpected allies, and even a damel in distress to be rescued at the height of a battle between the two Queens. I call this good cotton candy, and I like cotton candy. When is the next one going to be ready?

The balance of summer and winter cannot change. For one to gain more power than the other causes natural disasters such as raining frogs and other things. In this book you will learn in the beginning that the summer knight has been shoved down the stair and murdered. So Harry Dredsen was called by his good friend lieutenant Murphy to come investigate the scene. Questions like why would someone want to murder a poor old man and how did they get in the house without force entry are being asked and its up to Harry to figure out why. That's not all though. Summer and winter knights hold a fraction of their queens power. But some how when the summer knight died the power went missing. Will Dredsen be able to restore balance between the two courts? Read and find out.

What hit me hardest in this book was the fantastic portrayal of depression Mr. Dresden is experiencing in this book. It really brings him down to a human level, when (even with his petchance for finding trouble) he can seem quite extraordinary at times. Of course he prevail, but you're on your toes for the whole book!

A friend of mine let me borrow Full Moon and Grave Peril and I was reluctant to read Summer Knight. Full Moon was okay and Grave Peril, even though it started off strong, became tired and annoying. I had to force myself to read both and they took a three to five weeks to finish. I finished this one in a week.

Summer Knight gets a 4.5 out of 5 from me as I felt it was a huge step up from the previous books. There were a LOT of parts in this book I really like (my favorite being Toot toot and his little gang). The writing is more varied this time around as well so this is the best book in the series to date.

If my friend wants me to read the next book in the series, I won't so reluctant. Good job Jim Butcher.

This was my first Jim Butcher novel, and I have to say, I loved it! Having started in the middel of the Dresden Files series I was concerned about feeling left out of the loop, but this book was a wonderful, funny, vastly entertaining stand alone effort with just enough back story thrown in here and there to pique my curiosity and make me want to go back and read the previous books.

I have been in desperate search of a new Author to enjoy since Hamilton's recent works have left me stupified, and Charlaine Harris' newest Sookie novel isn't due for another couple of months. Jim Butcher fits the bill perfectly in every way leaving me nothing to complain about: great characters, no obscene language, intense action without getting grotesque, fascinating and believable descriptions of all sorts of otherworldly creatures and realms, and a fine dry wit, all together created a book I couldn't stand to put down, and had a smile on my face when I'd finished.

I don't often read fluff books because fluff books tend to be overly simplistic, badly written, and the equivalent to candy for your brain: sweet, sugary, and forgettable.

This book looked like fluff, but I read it anyway because, well it was assigned for the book club and because several people told me that they had enjoyed it. One of these people is a highly intellectual literary snob such as myself, and honestly it was her recommendation that made me consider if perhaps my initial judgment of "fluff" was misplaced.

It wasn't, the book is indeed a fluff book (at least upon initial inspection)... but fluff in the fun, enjoyable ride, piece of banana cream pie sort of way. This was enjoyable fluff!

The story takes place in Chicago and is basically a detective novel. It's just in this case the hard boiled detective has been replaced by a snarky wizard. Yes, I did say snarky. Oh, and wizard. We join Dresden as he attempts to solve a murder, keep peace between the warring faerie nations, and avoid getting killed by a group of (pardon the pun) blood thirsty vampires.

It is an adventure story full of intrigue, fights with trolls (in a Wal-Mart no less) and magic staircases that lead up and over Lake Michigan into the Faerie Battleground, and even a faerie godmother. What the book does extremely well is twofold. There is the constant juxtaposition of the Supernatural (wizards, spells, power shields, circles of power) with the natural (needing to pay rent, wishing the magic staircase was an escalator, having to find a robe, dealing with car trouble).

There is also the brilliant writing style that is conversational and pitch perfect. We see the events through the eyes of Dresden who is brilliantly self aware of both the dangers of his life and the bizarre bits that really just have to be laughed at. When he is attacked by a "plant monster" he acknowledges that he feels silly referring to it as a "plant monster" and yet should he call it by its proper name, well why bother? It is, essentially, a Plant Monster that is trying to kill him.

That could be it... a fun to read fluffy adventure with some magic and D&D shout outs and a well written narrative that inspires interest in reading more of the series.

But.... Nope. Butcher also manages to take a tentative step over into deep symbolism, writing at times with a mature sense of literary bravado. The story is about the two warring Faerie nations (Winter and Summer) but through that, the story is about balance. The balance of the seasons, the balance of power, the balance of the Natural and Supernatural, the balance of our past actions with our future hopes all are dealt with by Butcher with subtle sensitivity and an eye for the moral lesson even if it isn't beat into the head of the reader.

Which, is why this book is not as fluffy as it pretends to be. In <strong>Summer Knight</strong>, Butcher has done what few others have managed, he has told a complex story about great and epic ideas through the medium of simple lives and simple goals while telling a simple fantasy story through epic characters and scenarios.

The execution of all those ideas is truly worth reading.

This is an excellent story where Harry ends up having to work for one of the faerie queens in order to solve a murder case. Along the way he also has to handle the white council's response to his actions in the previous book. What I enjoyed about this book is how well-developed the characters were and the mythological realm Butcher created for the Faerie. It was a fun book to read and it fleshes the Dresdenverse out much more.

Poor Harry Dresden. Not only has he started a war between the Wzards and Vampires, but they all actually blame him for it. He was just trying to help an innocent, but the powers that be don't seem to care about such minutia.

But one of the real claims this series has on me is that Harry does care about such things, even when it (invariably) stumbles him into trouble of the worst kind.

So here is our poor hero, investigating a murder and theft intimatly connected to both courts of faerie, where neither side (as usual) is telling anything close to the whole story. And the White Counsel is using this case to decide if Harry should be handed over to the Vamps or just thrown to the wolves. And speaking of wolves, our favorite pack of shapechangers returns at Dresden's side to join in the mayhem and war that erupts all around him.

Does it get better than this? Well, read it and find out.

Harry Dresden, a wizard private investigator is in trouble yet again. Harry is worn out in this book and the white council is meeting to judge him about the war with the Red Court vampires. Harry's faerie debt to his godmother is traded to a fellow faerie. He agrees that the debt will be wiped clean after 3 favors. The first favor is that he must find who actually framed the Winter Faerie Queen.

How Harry manages to survive in these books I do not know, but each and every one of them are intriguing and I cannot get my fill of them. Harry shows his human side in this book, he has to make some decisions on if he should help his problems or help everyone. I have read books 1-4 so far, and this was by far my favorite. I cannot wait to read the next!

In the fourth novel of the series, Harry Dresden continues his seemingly unending guilt trips. He feels guilty about killing his mentor (who was trying to ensnare him in black magic). He feels guilty about killing his fellow orphan and girlfried Elaine, though he didn't kill her. He feels guilty about not honoring a deal he made with his fairie godmother, though he was underage and desperate when the deal was made. He feels guilty every time Lieutenant Murphy asks for his help, and he doesn't immediately solve the crime. He feels guilty for not telling Murphy about aspects of magic that must be kept secret. Then he feels guilty for telling her some of those secrets. He feels guilty when Murphy gets hurt, though he had warned her of the risks. He feels guilty for involving Michael in dangerous deeds, though God himself is sending Michael to help. He feels guilty about the acts of a dead wizard's ghost, though he couldn't have stopped the ghost from forming. He feels guilty about stirring up a war between vampires and wizards, though he had no real choice in his conduct. He feels guilty that his lover Susan is almost a vampire, though he told her not to go to the vampire party, and her presence there nearly got him and Michael killed. He feels guilty that he cannot cure Susan, though the best wizards in the world have been unable to devise a cure despite centuries of effort. Because of this last failure, Dresden has become self-destructive. Only luck and the fact that powerful beings want to use him keep him alive.

Flawed heroes are common in fiction (see Stephen Donaldson's Thomas Covenant books), but too much of a bad thing ruins the novel. Dresden's guilt is the flip side of an ego the size of Jupiter: you can only feel guilty about things you believe you can control, and Dresden believes he can control everything magical within 50 miles of downtown Chicago. At this point in the series, I am tired of Dresden's ego and his guilt. I hope future books concentrate on his magic, detecting, and bravery.

Harry's been bummed since his lady left, so he's been neglecting little things, showers, food, and bills. At least for time, he's not burning the city down, at least, not one on this plane of extistence.
Harry has a problem with his Godmother, he hates her. Which is fine and dandy, considering the feeling is pretty much mutual (she wants to enslave him). However, he made a promise to her and broke that promise, in exchange, he is to provide three small favours (small being the relative term). His Godmother traded his services to another - the Fairy Queen of Winter. She needs his help finding out who killed the Summer Knight. Why does she need to prove she did not do it? Because she did not order it done and wants to find out who did order it done, then she can torture that person to death in a extremely slow and tedious fashion (family intrigue is just so bizarre).

Why read: Enjoy the series.

What impressed me: I love how other supernaturals come into play in this series. While this book mainly focused on Harry's case with the faeries, there was lots of wizard and shifter fun as well. The case was fantastic. Really a great mystery that surprised me left and right. I'm totally loving Harry's working relationship with Murphy and can't wait to see that develop further.

What disappointed me: Depressed Harry isn't very entertaining. It took a while to get through those first few chapters, but things did get better once the action started.

Recommended: Yes. This was another great addition to the Harry Dresden saga.

Continue series: Absolutely.

Like many other reviewers, I first became acquainted with Harry Dresden by watching the TV series. the store then kindly informed me that there were books about Mr. Dresden. Currently, I have read all of the 9 available books in the series and think that it is one of the best urban fantasy stories in a very crowded market. Highly recommended. I'm placing my review here because, in my opinion, Summer Knight is were Butcher really shows his writing ability for exciting, non-stop action and the emotional bond between Harry and his now not-quite-vampire girlfriend, Susan. New readers would be advised to start with the first book and read the series in order. The later books make numerous references to events in earlier ones. That aside, I love this series. GO JIM and HARRY!! I can't wait for the next book to see what happens next.

Butcher continues his Dresden Files with another breathless installment that begins bad (bad for Harry, good for us) and the tension rarely slackens.
Harry's caught in the middle in a war between vampires, wizards, and fairies that may be all his fault ... but can he stop it from getting even more out-of-hand than it already is?
If you've read the others, you know what you're in for. This is somewhat less tense, strangely, than Book 3 (other than the wonderful trial sequence at the beginning) but still a darkly comic thrill-ride of a book. Not the world's greatest literature, but unputdownable, and that's fine by me.
Note: a 3 star ranking from me is actually pretty good; I reserve 4 stars for tremendously good works, and 5 only for the rare few that are or ought to be classic; unfortunately most books published are 2 or less.

Noire Fantasy is a genre best typified by series like this and Laurel Hamilton's Anita Blake and Merry Gentry novels which blend noire, fantasy and lite police-procedural. The characters in them are modern; they use phones and guns (sometimes), but magic and monsters are very real. In Jim Butcher's series, the main character is a wizard named Harry Dresden, the only representative of his reclusive caste in Chicago. He is alive only at the sufferance of the White Council, the governing body of all wizards, and in this fourth novel, on trial for his life for the second time because of a war with the Red Court, the vampire hierarchy.
Harry is the modern good guy, tough, sincere, well meaning, and human in many of the best ways. Many of his foes walk on the side of the righteous, or perhaps self-righteous, as do many of his enemies. Harry's friends and enemies include vampires and werewolves, fairies and demons, witches and gods. This whole series is a great read with a little bit of everything for those who like this blended sub-genre.

After a taste of the Fae world in the last book, we get thrown in full-force in this one. There's the usual complex plot as well as an explanation of the workings of the Faerie Courts. This sets up a lot of the ground work for threads that will be important later on.

Summer Knight is by far the best novel of the Dresden Files. Not only does it continue the overall plot of the series, but it has a fascinating and interesting plot within the novel. The war between the two fairy realms is interesting. I think this is the most creative work I have read by Jim Butcher. Gone are the hard to believe, out of nowhere scenarios. In this novel the actions are believable within the concepts of the novel. Bravo! I really enjoyed this novel. If you are a fan of the first three novels then I encourage you to read Summer Knight.

There has been a murder and a transfer of power is at hand. Whether the Winter or Summer fairies emerge victorious will determine if there is endless winter or endless summer on earth. It is my favorite novel of the series.

I found book four of the Dresden Files the best so far. It was explosive and had some pretty cool plot lines with things like old friends coming back into a storyline and people thought to be dead or trusted, proving to not be so. The series just gets better with each book

Also, I think there may have been a few typos, but less so than previous books. There was also a new look and different paper quality to the series starting with book four. Hopefully that means less errors that were missed by editors previously.

I can't get enough of this series and look forward to reading book five next. Definitely a 5/5 book.

Priscilla

Summer Knight by Jim Butcher

Harry Dresden is a wizard for hire, the only one in Chicago's Yellow Pages.
His latest client is Mab, the Winter Queen of Faerie. She makes Harry an offer he literally can't refuse. Harry has to find out who killed the Summer Knight or die trying.

Butcher does an exceptional job making wizardry seem normal. His characters are quirky and surprisingly believable. I enjoy his plots, I have yet to figure out before hand who did what. Harry has ethics and a strong moral compass. He is an eminently likeable protagonist.

I highly recommend the entire series. You will be seeing more as I have finally purchased all the ones that have currently been printed.

In classic Dresden fashion, Harry gets beaten to a pulp repeatedly, fights several battles almost simultaneously, faces death at every turn....

In this book, Harry is basically trying to find out who killed the Summer Knight. The twists and turns are the hallmark of any Butcher novel, and this one doesnt disappoint. When you finish this book, you feel like you have just desperately crawled through horrible battles with even more horrible fiends along with Harry. I wont ruin it for you buy describing much else, but if you have been reading this series up to now, you have a good idea what style of writing to expect. Read this one and.....enjoy! I did.

While many authors of a series start off strong and then taper aff after the third or fourth book in a series, Jim Butcher continues and even improves over time. Butcher does a great job of introducing and handling plots and sub-plots, constantly moving the main character forward in his development. He also has a fantastic supporting cast of characters who change and grow through the course of the series.

Another thing Butcher does really well is handle the tone of the stories. He deftly handles and balances both heavy and light elements extremely effectively.

Always an entertaining read. One of the few series where I am always looking forward to the next book.

I'm giving this book 1 star only because of the kindle price. I already have it in paperback and it is a great book. However, the publisher needs to be more realistic in their kindle pricing. As much as I would love to have this on kindle to make reading the series easier, there's no way I'm paying more for a kindle book than I did for the original paperback.

It's hard to say whether any one of the Dresden File books can be a favorite, but I can tell you which one you should not miss - this one.

This one volume alone will shape Harry's future. I won't spoil anything but you should know that Winter and Summer are a big deal in the Dresden universe and Harry entanglement in these worlds begins here. Don't miss this story.

Once again, Butcher's writing is superb. You always see everything from Harry's first person narrative - all things are revealed as he discovers them. The writing is detailed, snarky, and damn good storytelling.

This book was awesome. The characters were very real, even the faeries! The alpha characters from book # 2 (I think it was 2) are back and better than ever. Billy is pretty kewl. Harry is just as great as always. He still takes the Spiderman spiel "With great power comes great responsibility" to the extreme. Also we finally get to see more of the mysterious White Council. I can't say I'm too impressed as we didn't get much more than a glimpse at 'em. I can't wait to see what happens with the Red Court and the White Council. Also seeing how Harry's fairy godmother does love and care for him in her own unique inhuman way was pretty kewl. I love the character and hope to see more of her and Toot! Now hurry Butcher and gimme more!!

Audio 'book':

'writhing' is not pronounced 'wreathing'
'desmesne' is not pronounced 'dess-mes-neh'
'rune' is not pronounced as 'ruin'
'IM-po-tent', not 'im-PO-tent'
'sidhe' he occasionally pronounces as if it were English

I don't know what it is about this one, but it's among my favorite of the Dresden novels. Maybe because I'm a Murph fan and she kicks demonic hiney in this one. It's also the first book where the happenings in the Nevernever are really shown to influence the real world.

Besides, come on!!! Climactic battle with faeries, a demon, and a ghoul assassin inside a Super-Walmart? What's not to love?

Also, the decisive final battle really shows Harry leaning on others for a change, far more team-work than he's been comfortable displaying in some of the previous novels.

I'll just conclude the review with this thought from Harry "I know something you don't... the phone number to the Pizza 'Spress!"

I;m not entirely sure why I didn't care for this book as well as the first three. It's not that it was bad...but...hmmm...

I think a lot of it is becuase there's *too* much going on at once. Harry's got the White Council breathing down his neck, plus he's dealing with a war with the vampires, and now a war and murder with the faeries.

Now, don't get me wrong--I love urban faerie tales, and of all the portrayals of the fey, I think this one is my favorite second only to Emma Bull's "War for the Oaks". And I really like how much power the courts had in regards to nature.

Overall, the book is good. It just was a little too cluttered for my personal tastes. Still, read it! Cover to cover!

This addition to the Dresden files leaps directly into the story with a Neverworld hit occurring in the middle of a Chicago park. Poor Harry. First he gets attacked by some nasty Nevernever monsters and then it's raining toads. Literally!

A lover thought dead suddenly appears on Harry's doorstep, and things take off from there. The Alphas make another welcome appearance in this romp through Faerie, and I think I actually liked Harry's godmother, Lea, in this novel.

The author seems to have found his stride. We now have a fairly sizable group of characters and the author is developing them all. You very rarely see that and it speaks well for the continuation of the series. And Harry turns human...what an unexpected delight. After being aloof for so long its really good to see him develop friends.

Jim Butcher is the King of paranormal writing. The first thing I have to say is that he is getting stronger with each book. The story line in this one is better and more intense. To say the twists and turns, laughter, desperation and breath holding scenes are incredible. Harry is amazing, his involvement with each of the characters are so on the level of your best friend. I love him to pieces. I'm so ready for the next book, hope your enjoying the ride too!

Harry Dresten's girl friend was been turned half way into a vampire when he really [made them mad] by killing one of thier leaders, burning the place down (While saying "Burn Baby,Burn.") and starting a war between the wizards and the vampires. Assains are getting braver and a cold fairy queen has come to collect on a deal that just may kill him. The wizards think Harry has evil plans and can't decide if he should be exicuted or passed over to the monsters. The vampires will call the war off if the wizards just give Harry to them so they can try him in thier (Kangaroe) court and kill him horribolly or worse.
And you thought you had problems? Ha! By the way the Fairies are planing thier own war. One that will end the world as we know it.
Great book. One of those few that I will reread more then twice. Every thing in it seems like it could happen and magic is not the answer to everything. This book really should be made into a movie. Lots of explosions and such. It would be great. Really.
Also by Jim in order are: Storm Front, Fool Moon, Grave Peril, Death Masks

Well written but it had some mistakes about things that are obviously beyond the author's expertise (obviously I am referring to real world items).

As it regards to the publisher, Penguin I believe, they should be ashamed of themselves. They charge the same amount for an electronic copy as they do for a printed version even though their cost is significantly less (no paper, printing, storage, or shipping and distribution). I'm willing to bet the author doesn't see any increased revenue margin. On top of that it has type set mistakes throughout, approximately 130.

Remarkable! I've thoroughly enjoyed each book in the Dresden Files thus far, and this title (SUMMER KNIGHT, Book 4) was no exception. It's a compelling read, a page-turner, has witty dialogue, a solid fantasy world, interesting conflict, and characters I can root for. I'm SOLD on this series by Jim Butcher and will no doubt continue to buy and read each title.
Highly recommended to fans of Urban Fantasy.

Another fun Dresden Files adventure, but the stakes are getting higher in each volume since Harry started a war with the vampires.

The faerie courts are having some political unrest and Queen Mab comes to Harry with a problem. When he starts to investigate the death of the mortal Summer Knight, the White Council becomes involved and additional pressure is put onto poor Harry. Similar to the previous volume in that most of the story concerns the magical worlds rather than Chicago PD.

I'm now on my 5th book and I've recommended this series to everyone that I know that reads. These books are well written with lots of action, humor and serious supernatural stuff. I've read alot of scifi but enjoy these because there's always a bit of a mysterious plot as well as humor that makes Harry a likeable character. I have seen some of the tv series but was disappointed because of the major differences between the books and tv. Maybe someone should take it to the big screen and blow Harry Potter away. Dermot Mulroney would play an excellent Harry Dresden.

Well, first of all, I just love the Dresden File series. This is not a children's book and Harry Potter he is not. I wish the series wouldn't be labeled as fantasy because more people would otherwise read them. I love every book and they just get better and better. The plots are intricate, the writing is superb. I love the way he writes and Harry Dresden is a wonderful character. He has a great dry sense of humor. His bad guys are great and the rest of the characters are just great. Thank you Jim Butcher. There is only one problem: each book is my favorite.

Lots of old characters back for more fun (too many writers miss the importance of putting in some humor--it's good for contrast and makes the characters more real), even some unexpected ones.

I liked the politics of the faerie realm--I am sure others have tried, but I think Jim Butcher stays closer to traditional literary sources.

I found it a real page turner. Glad there's more books in series to read.

This is one of those books in danger of never coming back if lent out.
For anyone who has not read Summer Knight yet, is perfect pre-Halloween reading. There is loads of weirdness and atmosphere. If you are reading this review after Halloween, it is still a great read. It is face paced, well written and suspenseful. One aspect that is particularly strong in Butcher's writing is his skill at creating lush but not overdone descriptions. I had very strong impression of how things looked in Dresden's universe. Butcher has some interesting villains and I adore the hero Dresden. The closest thing to a nit I have is that the hero needed was super overloaded with problems. Luckily, Butcher did a great job of pulling it all together at the end.
As far as reading the previous books, I think that may add to the pleasure of reading this book but it is not essential. I have only read on other book in the series and that only slowed me down in one or two passages. I have every intension of reading all the books in the series; it's just a question of finding the time.

It just gets more awesome. This is exactly my kind of series. The insight into the Faerie realm and so much extra emphasis on magic really makes this one stand out out of the first 3. 10 more books to go :)

I've greatly enjoyed this series thus far. They are well written with characters and scenes that are easy to visualize as you go. Dresden is a great upside down hero. Kind of like Spider-Man's, with great power comes great responsibility, he has a lot of power and tries to " do good" but he gets the stuffing beat out of him regularly. Looking forward to the next one!

Live the book, packed with a good balance of sassy humor, crafty wizarding, ridiculousness, and a compelling story line. Jim Butcher has not yet disappointed me in any of his novels. Though, the reason I give this book four stars as opposed to the much deserved five is due to the ambiguity of a certain artifact obtained in the last quarter of the book which could have changed the series and the main protagonist's predicament altogether, yet (spoilers) it is never spoken what becomes of it after it serves its immediate purpose. Does it disappear? Does it only have one use? Does it get burned in some hell fire that appears out of nowhere? Does a magical dog open a portal from Doge-tropolis and grab it as a result of some multi-dimensional game of fetch? The world may never know.

I have been reading Jim Butcher's "Dresden Files" since the first book, and this is the best yet. It has been a real pleasure watching Harry Dresden develop as a character, and the author develop as a craftsman.
Things are heating up in Harry Dresden's Chicago. The White council is in town, and Harry is in trouble. The Vampire Reds are gunning for Harry, over a spot of arson last season. There is a rampant ghoul-cum hit man out there lurking, and Harry isn't completly sure who did the hiring. To top it all off, the courts of the fey are about to go to war, and it looks like Harry is the only one that can put a stop to it.
Harry just may survive this one , with a little help from his friends (the Alphas, Toot, Murphy) and some unexpected help from a few surprise sources.
I would highly reccomend this book!
To anyone looking for a terrific new series - Pick up a copy of "Storm Front", "Fool Moon", "Grave Peril", and "Summer Knight". Lock the doors, turn on the answer machine and have yourself a merry little weekend.
Congrats to the author on another great read. I just wish I didn't have to wait another year for the next one.

I really like the series, the character of Harry, but you know, so many things are said over and over, everything seems to have to be explained again every book. The same things happen (harry gets in trouble, the trouble escalates, his trouble gets him in more trouble with the fairies, his companions get in trouble etc etc etc) that it is now beginning to be a formula and wearing thin. I read somewhere that he wrote this on the basck of a writing course and that is now starting to show.

Having said that there are still enogh good bits to make it readable, just not as novel and original as was. Will probably still buy the whole deries, just hope it does not become ore formula based and descend into dribble.

Reviewed the kindle version.

This is my all time favorite Dresden Files book. The story is unique and fun. Sure it has a lot of the same old elements in it like the beetle and getting into too much trouble. It just has a different level of dimension to it as well. It was a fun easy read. It will continue to be my favorite Dresden File for many years to come.

This series is one I recommend repeatedly to friends who love Harry Potter. Think adult Harry Potter with a slightly less well knit community.

I've really enjoyed the prior books in this series, but this one was pretty flat for me. Harry is even more of a mess than usual, and the faerie politics were just a little too complicated. There are a few decent spots of action, and the climactic final faerie battle is written well enough that I could picture it in my mind, but overall I was left wanting more. It may be that there just wasn't enough of Harry's supporting cast here... Murphy only plays a small part, and Bob, one of my favorite characters, is only in one scene. I do plan on finishing this series, so I hope they pick back up!

I just recently picked up Jim Butcher's "Dresden Files" series 2 months ago. I thought I would just give it a go...and I am now on book 5! I'm reading these books as quick as I can get my little mitts on them. They are seriously addictive. Butcher does a great job filling the books with great mythology and loveable characters. I would hang out with Harry in an instant, and who doesn't love Bob? If you are debating giving these books ago--do it, and soon-- otherwise people will think you're just reading them because you saw the series on the Sci Fi channel!

Don't want to dive into the plot as others have, plus it's more fun to be surprised. This one had more fairies than most, and was dark while still being fun. Dresden's sense of humor and internal dialog is what makes this series so successful. Have already ordered the rest!

Another great Harry Dresden adventure that takes us deep into the fairie world and culture. There is lots of room for your imagination in this one and i doubt it was very on of the TV episodes due to all of the special effects that would have been necessary.

O.k, so don't get me wrong. I love these books, I really do, but #1 does Harry have to cry so much?? I mean, here is a guy who admits that he has problems expressing his feelings( he can't seem to come right out and tell Susan he loves her) and yet he seems to easily break into teary hysterics at some point in every book. Come on!! I'm a woman, I appreciate that Mr. Butcher is trying to make Harry seem human and sensitive but he is supposed to be a HERO, right?? I'm sort of put off by a hero who rescues me and then spends 15mins blubbering about it until he has to wipe his snotty nose on my sleeve.
#2- People, people, people...please reads these books from the beginning!!! Then I will not have to spend countless pages in every book going back over and over all the facets of the characters and their world that you should remember from book one. Really?, the blue beetle isn't blue? Electric stuff doesn't work so good around wizarding stuff? Bob is a sex maniac skull? The cat is huge?? The author writes these books in a row for a reason, do most of us a favor and just go with his master plan and start with #1!!!
That way we can have more pages to fill with actual story line....and crying obviously....
But, like I said, I still love 'em anyway....

Love Harry Dresden! Jim Butcher never fails to deliver a great adventure. Read and re-read and always enjoy. I would have liked a little more of Elaine's version of events. But it's a first-person book. Can't complain too much.

Summer Knight is a great addition to the Dresden files. Caught between the power struggles of Summer and Winter is not the place you want to be. Harry seems to have the knack at being in the wrong place at the wrong time. How he walks the fine line of being an unwilling champion of Winter and keeping on good terms with Summer at the same line is pure luck. Someone must be seriously after him to get him into these fixes or he has a guardian angel really looking out for him. Which is it? Well worth readying. I couldn't read it fast enough

Enter the world of Faeries as the seasons and their rulers duke it out for supremacy. Once again Harry Dresden is called in to battle in a world with which mortals cannot contend. A great fourth installment of this series.

Butcher hits his stride with this volume! As good as the first three books in this series have been, this one is the best yet. I couldn't put it down--like a classic detective story, trying to figure out how this one is going like walking a tight rope, and you just *have* to keep reading to see how it ends. He also does a masterful job of introducing (still more) new characters and having an epic, worldwide battle without losing the personal touch to the main characters that keeps the story interesting and human. When many authors run out of steam after their first three, Butcher looks like he's just getting better and better.

This is the fourth in a series of books that pits Harry against the wizards, demons, and black magic around Chicago. This is a easy read that will sink it's claws into where you want to know if Harry will survive against evil.

I was nerver really much into this type of book, till my good friend read one and recommended them. She liked them so much I read one and enjoyed the story line so well, I got the idea to buy her the set so I could borrow them to read! The set came in perfect conditon, quick deliver and on time for my friends birthday. Will check you out for future purchases!

Happy New Year!

Check out Harry Dresden new series, in The Dresden Files on SciFi Channel Sundays starting Jan 21, 2007

I personally found Summer Knight to be one of the more weak books in the Dresden Files series. It's worth reading to keep going in the series (and the series is worth reading), but it didn't seem to be as good as "Grave Peril" which preceded it or as good as "Death Masks" or "Blood Rites" which comes after it.

All in all onne of the more forgettable books in a memorable book series.

I'm not much of a fantasy fan, but when a friend gave me this book to read I gave it a try. I found I quite liked the private eye combined with wizard aspect and the prose was face-paced and engaging. Enjoyed the Fairy pizza humor and ended up being pleasantly surprised.

For God's sake Jim,get an editor that knows English grammar and can spell. This is the worst one of your books I have read to date as far as errors in grammar and spelling. All the errors are very distracting.

Harry Dresden is one of the most interesting characters I've read about in a very long time. Combining magic, mystery and humour this grown up version of Harry Potter is a fascinating read. In a world inhabited by vampires, faeries and wizards, Harry stands out head and shoulders above the rest.
In this latest novel Jim Butcher takes his character to the next level of his development and we learn a little bit more about Harry's youth as well as meeting the infamous White Council. Structured as a good old fashioned detective whodunnit, this is the sort of book you read from cover to cover in one sitting, arriving late for work, cranky and bleary eyed.
Summer Knight is pure magic!

I don't know how Jim does it, but he just keeps topping himself. This book got me breathing hard and my heart racing. My hubby thought I had come to the juicy parts in (please pardon the expression) a bodice ripper, but I explained I was just spending time with my favorite wizard, Harry Dresden. Hubby says I then started babbling about rainbow colored blood,pixies, and fairies, and ogres, oh my! After which he claims I passed out from over-excitement. He poured a glass of cold water on me to bring me back and told me I was not allowed to read another Jim Butcher book. Fortunately hubby has a very short memory and a very wily wife. I am already dreaming, or maybe night-mareing about Death Masks, Jims next addition to the Harry Dresden Files!

This was book 4 in the series. I had skipped the book because I couldn't find a good copy, and, of course, missed some of the references in newer books. I'm all "caught-up" in the series,and just waiting on the publisher to turn out the last book in the series. Still, if you like detective fiction and sorcery fiction, this series will "tickle your fancy" with the uppity protagonist. I do like the series, and like Jim Butcher's writing style.

This was another good installment of the Dresden Files. It's fast paced, and has really good characterization. Harry Dresden has some flaws, but as I reader I always get the sense that he's trying to improve himself and that's one of the reasons why I think he's likeable.

One thing I liked about it in particular was how some of the side characters in the previous novels played a more prominent role in this one.

This is my favorite of the Dresden Files books so far. It is different from the first three in that we deal with the vampires less and the fairies more. We also see more of the White Council than the first three books. It is well written and highly enjoyable.

I was tickled to see that a new Harry Dresden novel was coming out in hardback, and pre-ordered it without investigating further. Imagine my surprise when I started reading, thought, "Wow, this all sounds terribly familiar," and then finally realized it was an earlier book in the series, inexplicably released as a hardback at this late date. Sigh. I am enjoying reading it since I love all the Harry Dresden novels ... but it's annoying when you already know how things come out in the end! If publishers are going to re-release paperbacks in hardback, I wish they would tag it as a re-release or something. I feel duped.

As with all the books in the Dresden files, Summer Knight did it disappoint...My absolute favorite Dresden line has to be "Meep, Meep" when Harry ran away from one of the characters in the book. The Dresden Files are must reads and keepers!

This was a gift from a friend. I totally loved it! This series is absolutely addictive! I love the way it follows the characters defined with introducing new ones. Each addition is very carefully done and you learn more about each character with each book.

This book sets in motion events that will change the magical as well as Harry's life for ever

this is not my favorite of the series but it is a necessary link in the chain
esp when you get to the 2 most recent books

as always butcher as a nack for writing what feels like a pulp detective story from the 1940's but set in the modern world (more or less.

Butcher's getting better as he goes, I think. If you liked the prior books, you should really like this one. Harry's a bit less abused, a bit more on top of his game. Lots of scenes involving the Sidhe, all memorable and stylish and fun - including a truly epic battle to finish the book!

Dresden Files Book 1 was a fast read, and a lot of fun. Books 2 and 3 I also enjoyed, but they didn't have the surprise factor that the first had, and at times my attention wandered a bit. Book 4 blew 'em all away. I'm looking forward to 5!

Just like books 1-3, I loved it. The only problem I had was keeping track of which faerie belonged where. Whomever was a lady or queen of summer or winter was hard to keep straight. Other than that, it was action packed, with a good amount of humor mixed in.

I enjoyed reading this book as well as the earlier books in the Dresden series. Butcher has interesting characters and situations in his novels, making his novels fun to read.

In this book, I noticed Coke written several times on a couple pages so I started counting. From page 247 to the end Coke(coca cola) is written 14 times, too commercial for my taste.

I first saw a segment of the Dresden Files on TV. Had never known about it before, so I thought I would try a book. Enjoyed the book, so I have now read the whole series of books and am waiting for the next ones. I personally don't know how much magic there is, but the principles of the book are good. Light, dark, good , bad and all the temptations out there that send people to the dark side of life.

If you are in doubt about buying this book or not, buy it! You will never regret it. It is has been years since a found a series so interesting, so appealing, so fantastic. And I may say I read a lot. It is really a perfect story.

I really loved this book, the third in the series I think, I've read so many of this series. While I really love them all, this one stands out as a really strong book.

One of my all time favorite fiction series.

Read 'em all!

I have really enjoyed the Dresden books. The action never lets up, and you can never quite catch your breath. I can't wait to turn the page. Anyone who likes action with a heart, should really enjoy these books, whether or not you like fantasy. Harry Dresden is real person, who happens to be a wizard.

I really enjoyed the first three in this series of books ... but in Summer Knight, the few aspects of Butcher's writing that slightly annoyed are beyond irkson. If No. 5 is more of same I'm through with Dresden Files.
In order of least importance:
1) Murphy is a boor. Harry's amused by her but she does nothing whatsoever amusing and her lack of friendly regard for him given the number of times he has saved her life and what they've been through isn't remotely believable.
2) Harry's smart-ass comments are way less funny than they were in the books that preceded this one. There isn't a single line that stays with you. Too puerile to repeat to a fellow Butcher fan. The kind of remarks a second grader might make-- coming out of the mouth of a grown man (and middle aged at that). The only thing he didn't say is "Pull my finger."
3) This is the one that's really really really killing me -- enough with the essay-length descriptions of what the Fairies are wearing, the perfection of their lips, the pertness of their nipples, and not just of the Fairies but of every damned woman Butcher mentions. None of these descriptions do anything to differentiate the characters in the readers mind -- they are far too similar. Apart from the fact that he's describing women instead of men, it's hack, contract romance writer stuff, the kind that pays a nickel a page. I've got nothing against good sex, but this is locker room adolescent longing. Lose the heaving bosoms and bone up on some solid erotica next time around.
3a) ... doesn't bother me as much as the rest but I have to agree with another review who said Butcher's mentions of Coke are out of control At least in the James Bond books, Ian Fleming's numerous product placements were for interesting products -- luxe items a reader might lust after. Coke.Coke.Coke.Coke.Coke. It's already in my fridge,I'll read it off the label.
Please Note: This review does not represent the opinion of Jos, my ex-husband. This is Amy. We just haven't gotten around to splitting up our the store IDs.

Butcher continues this series in typical frenetic style, throwing Dresden amongst the Winter and Summer faery Courts, apparently tasked with the job of finding the Summer Knight (I think)

Unfortunately with a few too many sub, mini, side, and overarching plots it all becomes a little too much. I couldn't even tell you who the big bad guy was.

Still this is Butcher's style, so if you like it you do, if you don't two stars...

If you liked the early Hamilton books you will really like the Dresden books. The series starts slow but the second, third, and fourth books are really good. If you like occult mystery, try these books.

Regarding the use of this book on Kindle - it USED to be speech enabled, allowing a Kindle user to play the book in your car so you could hear it while you drove (or any other place, if you wanted to give your eyes a rest). Now, all of a sudden, it's no longer speech enabled (text-to-speech). What gives? Did the publishers suddenly change their minds? Is the support for text-to-speech disappearing from our Kindles? I bought Kindle BECAUSE it had the text-to-speech ability, and now that seems to be getting more and more useless for the books I want to buy. Horrible.