Proven Guilty (The Dresden Files #8)

Synopsis: Proven Guilty is the eight book of Jim Butcher’s The Dresden ,Files series of novels. At this point we have Harry Dresden fulfilling his responsibilities as a Warden in service to the White Council as the war with the Red Court of vampires still on-going.

A year since the confrontation depicted in Dead Beat, Warden Harry Dresden starts the book attending a trial of a teenage boy found guilty of black magic. Given he violated the law of using magic to control the minds of others, the Merlin has no choice but to have him executed. This feels like a message of sorts to Harry – a reminder of his place in the Merlin’s view of the world and a warning that there are those who are prepared to strike him down as soon as he makes a mistake.

After this initial incident, Harry receives a message from the enigmatic Gatekeeper to track down use of black magic in Chicago before it’s too late. As he begins to puzzle over this charge, Harry then receives a call from Molly Carpenter, daughter of Michael. She begs Harry’s help in some police matter and it becomes a stark reminder that she’s no longer the little girl he once knew and that he had been consciously avoiding the Carpenter family after his dealings with the Denarian Lasciel, whose echo now lives in his head.

What I Liked: I’m a bit of a sucker for stories that involve the Faerie world and Harry resorting to reaching out to the Summer Court early in the book already got me excited about where things would go. Spoiler alert – they’re involved in the story as a whole and are not just a cameo of past characters and it does make the book all that much better.

Its funny how I enjoy so many parts of this book that I’m actually uncertain how much I can write about before totally geeking and revealing too much about things because of that. Molly Carpenter is a great character and I was not expecting her to be reintroduced into the series his way. Harry is certainly growing in his own abilities but is once again attempting to isolate himself given the Denarian threatening to take control of him. And Murphy and Harry finally have a somewhat meaningful conversation and that’s also a big deal. So much good stuff in this book!

What Could Have Been Better: There’s not much that I’d change in this book so we can only be left with nitpicking.Sure there are parts of Molly’s story that initially seem more annoying than they needed to be but Butcher has a way of making even the most mundane, incidental characters end up being important later on. It may feel like you have to suffer through some of the early bits of the story with the horror convention and all that but that’s just the beginning.

If I were to complain about anything else, it would be the lack of more Michael Carpenter being involved. Yes, this was a narrative requirement to really have Harry looking out for Molly and bringing that relationship back up to speed but it’s totally fun to fanboy over Michael as a Knight of the Cross so I’ll just take this time to complain about things.

TL;DR: Proven Guilty is a great Dresden book and one that feels like it setups up a lot of new stories for the future centered around the Faerie Courts, Molly Carpenter, Lasciel and a whole lot more. It’s very well done and it really celebrates its characters so I really enjoyed it.

When a wave of black magic threatens Chicago, wizard PI Harry Dresden is assigned to protect the city’s mortal population by the White Council of Wizards. The difficulty of this task becomes apparent as teen-aged Molly, the magically gifted daughter of an old friend, a horror convention that acts as a magnet for dark forces, a pair of mortal champions of the Summer Court of Faerie, and a Fallen angel determined to seduce Harry all conspire to complicate an already delicate situation. With the support of his vampire brother Thomas, CPD Lt. Murphy, Bob the talking skull, Molly’s furious mother & a sacred Tibetan Temple dog, Harry must invade the Winter Court of Faerie to avoid a cataclysm.

One thing I’ve learned about Dresden books is that often the actual ‘plot’ of the book itself is not nearly as enjoyable as the character development, or even the developments of the bigger series plots. Blood Rites was this way, and so is Proven Guilty. I liked Proven Guilty even more, because I love the Carpenter family, and we learned a ton about them in this book.

I had a vague idea of where Molly Carpenter’s story was going, but I was completely shocked at the growth we saw in Charity. I never hated her, but she certainly had frustrated me throughout the series. I felt like I had a pretty good idea what her motivations were, but man Butcher took that to a place I didn’t expect. Charity was so awesome I didn’t even miss Michael, which is pretty remarkable.

As I said, the story is pretty simple. Harry (now a Warden), is tasked with two missions– first, to discover why the Courts of Fae are not helping the Wardens in their War with the vampires, and second, to figure out how/why a bunch of movie monsters are attacking and killing people attending ‘SplatterCon!!!’, the local horror movie convention. As satisfying as it was to read about Harry battling a xenomorph (“Get away from her you B*&ch!”), the story about the Fae Courts was more interesting to me.

The book certainly has it’s weaknesses, but it’s hard to see them right now, as I’ve become pretty biased at this point. Upon re-reading the series, I doubt Proven Guilty will be my favorite, but right now I have entered the stage where I love this series so much that the each book I read becomes my favorite. Highly recommended.

I hate series. I never seem to find the “next” one when I start reading them. I’ve been very pleasantly surprised by the Dresden Files books because you can dive in to any of them and get the gist of what the series is about instead of being hopelessly lost if you miss a book in the series. And, so far, I’ve really enjoyed all of them. This particular book is good, but not quite as good as others I’ve read. Also, there is a Dresden Files DVD (not included with the books). It doesn’t do justice to the books, but is OK if you haven’t read any of them.

I find myself with an interesting relationship with the Dresden Files. I put off reading this one, concerned that as I wasnt feeling excited at the prospect of picking it up that Id gone off the series. But actually once I did lift it from the shelf and get stuck in I found myself really enjoying it.

The story begins with a cry for help from a family member of a friend, which in turn drags Dresden, Chicagos only wizard PI, into an investigation into supernatural occurrences around the city and beyond.

There are a number of things about this book that I enjoyed. Its a proper investigation, and I am a fan of detective stories. It reveals more about the characters, their backstories, and their relationships – and develops them in new directions as well. It builds more into the world and the mythology of the series. And its a good adventure.

So overall Im left feeling much more engaged with the series, and I hope I can keep that feeling forefront in my mind when Im choosing what to read in the future and my gaze drifts to the shelves for B.

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