Blood Rites, by Jim Butcher
Blood Rites is the sixth novel of The Dresden Files by author Jim Butcher. The story revolves around Harry Dresden, a wizard living in present day Chicago. Dresden is asked by Thomas, the vampire we first meet at Bianca's shindig in book 3, to help solve a couple of really weird murders that are happening around a friend of his, Arturo Genosa. Genosa, a skin flick director, is experiencing odd and deadly attacks on all the women in his life, and wants to know why. Harry agrees since Thomas has saved him so many times in the past. While on the set acting as another stagehand, Harry comes across several clues - with Murphy's help, of course - that give him a better understanding of Genosa's history. Meanwhile, Harry realizes the Black Court is in town and enlists the aid of Kincaid, Ivy's helper, to take them down. Evenutally, the White Court comes in and doesn't make things any easier, either. Also, Murphy wears a dress AND pink underwear with white bows on them. Also, puppies.
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Dresden saves puppies and ends up keeping one by accident, the newest addition to the Dresden clan: Mouse. After agreeing to Thomas's favor, Harry find out that Genosa had three ex-wives. Murphy tells him that each of the ex-wives are entitled to a large sum of money indefinitely through Genosa's will. The operator of the money was supposed to be Genosa's mother, but she is deceased at this point. If Genosa marries again, that woman will then become the operator. That gives all three ex-wives a motive for murder, but the murders are being done by really powerful magic, which none of the three seem to possess. After some more searching, Harry finds out that Lord Raith, the King of the White Court of vampires, is out for Genosa because Genosa once worked under him, but has now decided to go do his own thing. And to boot, if Genosa's latest movies do well, he'll be in better and higher power in the field that Raith. So Raith has motive, too. Turns out, Raith was the one giving the motive to the three exes. None of them knew about the clause in the will. So the four of them worked together to conjure up a massive ritual spell to take out any and all women around Genosa, hoping to finally land on the right one since no one knew who #4 was going to be. That would leave Genosa vulnerable, and more able to be controlled once again. Harry originally agreed to help out Genosa only if Thomas would tell him why he's saved him so many times. At Raith House, Thomas takes Harry down to the bottom floor, to a painting gallery. Thomas explains that Lord Raith took it upon himself to have a painting made of each woman who bore him a child. After Harry looks at the paintings for a few minutes, he notices the one second to last looks familiar. He reads the name underneath, Margaret Gwendolyn LeFay, his mom. Thomas yanks a pentacle out from under his shirt and reveals that Margaret is his mother, too. Harry and Thomas are brothers. Kincaid comes around, as does Ebenezar, and along with Harry and Murphy as a foursome, they storm the homeless shelter to bring down the Black Court. Mavra is leading them, but after a long battle of quick thinking and charred limbs, Harry takes her down with a paintball gun full of holy water and garlic. The four heroes escape with the hostages in tow, a bunch of children, and take the kids to Father Forthill. Afterward, Harry and Murphy make arrangements to meet back up in an hour to storm Raith House and save Thomas, who is being used as the sacrifice with which the huge ritual spell will use to kill Harry, to get him out of the way of letting all the baddies be exposed. During that hour, Ebenezar tells Harry a lot of stuff. Like, how he and Kincaid know each other. They know each other because they were both formerly assassins during the same time. Eb tells Harry that Kincaid is only half-human but doesn't tell him what the other half is. Then Eb tells Harry that he knew Margaret, his mother. Turns out Margaret was Eb's apprentice and that Eb was really hard on her, so she ran away to be defiant. She took up wrong crowds just to be rebellious, but after a while she couldn't stop or turn back. Eventually this led her to Raith, where she had Thomas, and then to Harry's dad. Raith killed Margaret the night Harry was born, using an entropy spell. Margaret cast her death curse on him, which now means he can't feed until both lines of her blood, Thomas and Harry, are killed. Killing them will douse the bloodline and release Raith of the curse. When Harry and Murphy show up at Raith house to defeat Raith once and for all, Raith ambushes them and takes them down to the cave where Thomas is being held and the ritual is getting ready to take place. Ex-wife #1 begins the ritual on Thomas. After being called away to a fake accident, Raith returns and is jumped by Murphy and Harry. All the lights go off in the cave and Harry and Murphy are left in the dark trying to find Raith and defeat him before the ritual can be completed. The ex-wife calls upon He Who Walks Behind, the demon Justin sent after Harry. Harry saves Thomas, but he and Murphy can't defeat Raith by themselves since he's protected. Lara, his daughter, comes in and starts seducing him, telling everyone else to get out. Everyone lives. For once. Harry offers to house Thomas until he can find a place for himself, since Lara thought it would be better for him to go away from Raith House, and the book ends with Harry naming his new furry friend and accepting Thomas as his brother.
Warning: Spoilers follow
here.
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Holy crap. The stuff in this book. Margaret was kind of a slut. I want to know what his dad's name was. If we've already been told, I've forgotten. I also want his dad's story. I want Harry to forgive Eb and they be cool again. I love that Thomas is his brother. There was a lot sexual tension between Murphy and Dresden in this book. Not sure if I like that or not. Murphy's sister is a bitch. I started yelling when I thought Thomas was dead. I'm really glad he's not. We still don't know who Morgan's special someone was at Archangel. I want the war to be over. I don't give 5 stars lightly. I really enjoyed this book, it is now my favorite. So far. 5/5.
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Dead Beat, by Jim Butcher
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