Well, it doesn’t get good yet. It’s somewhat improved over the first, but still has issues with wild solipsism driving the actual narrative, synonymous with Dresden himself. He still can’t remotely write women and it’s full of all types of fan service where they are concerned. Honestly, I feel like the fantasy trash mood this book occupies is the same ven diagram of people who watch B movies. Second hand nostalgia and so-bad-it’s-fun-but-not-good.

Then again, it does again subvert some expectations of the genre with who the bad guys are and the magic system being 10% different than you’d expect. Tidbits of Dresden’s past come up. The narrative finally acknowledges that Dresden is basically Xander from Buffy grown up, with his relationship to women. White knighting, but actually just sexist and an idiot most of the time. Yet, still women get in their own way at every turn. Butcher may not know he’s got a huge blind spot for this in his writing just yet, but will soon, I think. Again, popcorn commercial fiction, foundational to contemporary urban fantasy. Mostly bad with some stuff that stuck to the culture, altering the space.

Another solid book in this series. I have a feeling this series will end up with my other favorites....LOTR, HP, ASOIAF. I do love my fantasy.

Doesn't matter if you watched the series - there are just so much new stuff in these books - they are great mysteries!

This series is finally picking up steam. If the entire book went as well as the last third of the book, this would probably have been 4 or maybe 5 stars. I'm looking forward to book #3.

So, I really quite liked the first book of the series.

I wasn't too excited by the second one.

In this one, Harry is pretty useless for most of the book which -to me- made for a rather lackluster book to be honest.

There was a bit of interest in seeing the plot unfold, but it would have been much more interesting if the "Wizard" had actually done some MAGIC! Sigh. Hoping the next books get better as we go along? Perhaps the author will get practice?

I've heard very good things about this series so ... I definitely won't write it off on just one book.

Good continuation in the series, but I enjoyed the first book a bit more from the novelty of establishing the world and Harry’s relationship with others and his world. Or maybe it’s just the werewolf-heavy plot that made the mystery just a little less mystery but feeling meh that makes me rate less. However, kudos to feeling at the end that there is more planned mystery to come (as obvious by how many books are in there series) that leads me to continue on to book three regardless of feeling meh from plot.