It’s official: Jim Butcher is still awesome. There’s very little that I can say about this book quality-wise that I haven’t said about just about all of the previous Dresden Files novels. Which is to say, Turn Coat quite heavily engaged me, and delivered in spades on all of the things I have come to expect in this series.
Plot-wise, I can say that if Jim’s stated plans for the series are holding up, we’re now at about the halfway plot of the overall plot arc–and things happen herein that very much set the stage for the second half of the series. We have some fabulous followup on Harry’s older interactions with a former foil. We have (agonizingly slow and yet absolutely correct) advancement in the relationship between Harry and Murphy. We get a look for the first time at the home base of the wizards of the world, in Edinburgh. A decently scary primary monster sets the bar very high for some creepy forefront action, while behind the scenes players maneuver events into the exact proper way to make life very, very, very difficult for Harry for several more books. The ending in particular is wrenching, and definitely takes things in a darker direction, which seems appropriate given how the stakes of the overall plot arc have now been raised.
All in all a mighty fine read, and I’ll knock off a star only because one of the bad guys was a little too obvious. Four stars.