Synopsis: When we last left the mighty wizard detective Harry Dresden, he wasn’t doing well. In fact, he had been murdered by an unknown assassin. But being dead doesn’t stop him when his friends are in danger. Except now he has nobody, and no magic to help him. And there are also several dark spirits roaming the Chicago shadows who owe Harry some payback of their own. To save his friends-and his own soul-Harry will have to pull off the ultimate trick without any magic…
It’s taken me several days to be able to write this review. I downloaded the book on Tuesday morning, the day it was released and was finished by Wednesday evening. I’m a huge fan of this series and its author Jim Butcher.
If you haven’t read the rest of the series… it’s a bit daunting, this is book #13. If you’re really opposed to getting into something this long, you could probably get away with reading Changes (#12) and then Ghost Story. Jim Butcher’s website also has sample chapters of all his books, you can probably get a good idea if the series is worth the time investment from that.
If you’re familiar with the series, Ghost Story won’t dissapoint. This book feels a little different from the others, it’s a more introspective story. Harry’s forced to really take stock of his life and how his choices have affected others… he doesn’t always like what he sees in himself. As usualy Harry’s beeing manipulated by outside sources, and hopefully he’s going to come out the other side of this experience with some new perspective.
The story is full of the dry wit and self-deprecating humor we’ve come to expect from Harry. I found myself laughing out loud in several places. There’s not as much action as we usually see in a Dresden novel, but that’s to be expected… Harry’s a ghost.
As usual the supporting cast is excellent. We meet a few new characters and get to know a few old ones a little better (the villain is a repeat offender). Mortimer Lundquist features heavily, as does the usual crew of Murphy, Molly, and Butters. Some of my favorites are notably absent, but it all makes sense by the end.
It’s [SPOILER] and I love it when [REDACTED]. The ending is [BLEEP, BLEEP, BLEEP]. Sorry, I think I’ll have to restrain myself, the spoilers abound.
When some authors get several sucessful titles under their belt sometimes editors take a hands-off approach and the work suffers for it. This came up in the comments of a post over at Tami’s site. This book doesn’t suffer from the rambly, wandering novels we’ve seen come out of notable authors lately(George RR Martin and Charliane Harris, I’m looking at you!). Kudos to Jim Butcher and his editor for continuing to put out a superior product 
One of the reasons I waited a little while to write this is so that I could get a little distance and maybe see a flaw or two. It’s been nearly a week and I can’t think of a single complaint. Either I’m just that big of a fangirl or it’s just that good. Hopefully it’s the latter!
TL;DR
- Title: Ghost Story - Amazon Link
- Author: Jim Butcher – author’s website
- Genre: Urban Fantasy
- Length: 496 pages in hardback
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
- Is it worth purchasing: Unreservedly yes! In hardback!
