Book Review - "Turn Coat" by Jim Butcher *BEWARE SPOILERS*

“Turn Coat” is the latest book in Jim Butcher’s “Dresden Files” series of supernatural detective fiction set in contemporary Chicago. As with all the previous works in the series, it was an excellent read, but it struck me as different, somehow; especially since I’ve been reading one of his earlier novels during the last few days.

If you’ve not read any of the previous novels, and you like a) detective stories, b) supernatural stories, or c) both, I recommend picking up the series from the start and giving it a go (especially before reading this somewhat spoiler-laced review). Hell, even if you don’t naturally read those kind of books, I’d still recommend picking them up. There’s something about them that speaks to you, even if you’re not into books about magic and demons.

Firstly, the tone was different. I’m not sure what it was about it, but it seemed to take quite some time for the first-person narrative to slip into the familiar strides of a Dresden novel. In many ways this was refreshing, but it did offer the opportunity to spotlight some other (not necessarily good) things about the story.

And I really hate to say this, but the events of “Turn Coat” annoyed me in a few ways. I won’t go so far as to say I’m disappointed in how the story panned out, because I still thoroughly enjoyed reading it, but there were some definite parts of the narrative that didn’t sit well with me.

Firstly, the moment the guy who eventually turned out to be the villain was introduced, I had pegged him as the villain. It wasn’t a case of “I think it’ll be him, let’s see...” It was a case of “Aha! That’s the guy! Let’s see what he’s up to!” He was too obvious a character, I think, to have been anything but a villain. Sure, Butcher mixes the narrative up by hinting its other people through the narrative — and I admit there was one “Oh man, he’s not going to throw THAT at us is he?” moment when I really got annoyed with Mr Butcher’s direction with the story (more on that in a moment) — but overall, I worked it out soon. In my opinion, too soon.

It’s possible that I’m simply getting better with detective stories. I have to admit, I’m thinking of having a dabble in the genre myself, thanks mostly to the influence of the Dresden novels, and the “Bones” and “Castle” TV series, so I’ve been swatting up on a fairly limited range of its contemporaries. But for me, it’s all about having suspicions and then having the hood removed from your eyes, and I never really felt I had a hood on in “Turn Coat”. It was too obvious.

Be that as it may, the turns of the story were well executed in this sense, and the pace was consistently ramped up all the way through to the end.

Speaking of the end: I’m very annoyed with the whole Luccio situation. It’s possible that I’m annoyed because I didn’t see it coming. Maybe I didn’t WANT to see the whole mind control thing coming. I mean, Butcher’s played the mind control card a fair few times now in the series — the whole novel introducing us to Molly, for a start, and then Mab’s blanking out of Dresden’s mind when she ensured he couldn’t use his fire magic — and while this certainly reinforces the danger of breaking that particular Law of Magic, I can’t help but feel cheated that the fun writing we had in “Small Favour” has so quickly been squashed by the whole “Luccio was mind controlled into getting close to you” situation. From a story perspective I admire Butcher planting the seeds in the previous novel, and then carrying them through to fruition, but I still can’t help feeling disgruntled about it.

I can draw a parallel when the narrative thread pertaining to Lasciel, the fallen angel in Dresden’s mind for several books, came to a very powerful and poignant ending in a previous story, albeit one that led to Dresden’s new “power of the month” — Soulfire. With her departure there was a very clear act of bravery and defiance and sacrifice, and her character arc was rounded off tightly and emotionally. Perhaps if we’d been treated to more of the Dresden/Luccio relationship then I wouldn’t feel so cheated by it turning out to be a trick of the mind (literally). In some ways I feel almost as if Butcher didn’t really have this in mind when he wrote the previous scenes at the end of “Small Favour”, and the idea came to him after it was published.

I can only hope that, in subsequent novels, the simmering feelings that Luccio has for Dresden will surface once more, because it was a fun relationship to play with, and some of Butcher’s best writing. Besides, Dresden’s luck with women is worse than my own, and it’d be nice to give him some happiness that wasn’t wrenched away by the end of the next novel.

The “oh he’s not going to throw that at us...is he?” moments I mentioned earlier were first when Molly mentions that someone has been playing with Luccio’s mind (At this point it didn’t take a genius to figure out that the Luccio/Dresden relationship was going to come crashing down and it was only a case of to what degree); and then when Luccio mysteriously disappears from Dresden’s apartment. I know as a writer you are supposed to chase your main characters up trees and throw sticks at them but come on...

After finishing the book, I immediately felt the need to trawl the internet to find out what other people were saying. A lot of people are concerned about the new changes to Dresden’s brother, Thomas, but I’m not so worried. I felt it was time for the character to take a new direction, and Butcher quite skilfully worked it into the narrative. Its left deliciously ambiguous towards the end at how much/little of the Thomas we have come to know is still there — there are some offhand comments that he makes that don’t fit with his new hard-ass persona, and there are Dresden’s own musings that tigers can’t actually change their stripes, perhaps suggesting that he knows Thomas isn’t in great health, but he’s going to use that to his advantage. That’s a lovely setup and I’m intrigued to know what happens next.

So yeah, overall another excellent novel in the series. There’re a lot of important plot revelations about Dresden, some interesting titbits about his mother, various people get to learn more about his somewhat special relationship with Thomas, and there’s plenty of intrigue and stuff. I have to admit, if it wasn’t for the crap with Luccio, I’d probably have raved positive about it harder and possibly not even written this review. But sometimes a guy just has to rant.

“Turn Coat” : 9/10