2008; 437 pages. Book 10 (out of 17) in the “Dresden Files” series. New Author? : No. Genres: Paranormal Thriller; Urban Fantasy; Action-Intrigue. Overall Rating: 9*/10.
It’s all rather bizarre.
Someone has kidnapped Chicago
crime boss “Gentleman Johnnie Marcone”.
They literally tore the entire front off the building he was in and
whisked him away. Chicago Police want
the city’s resident wizard, Harry Dresden, to investigate. But that’s not the strange part.
Queen Mab, aka "The Winter
Queen", aka "The Faerie Queen", drops in on Harry, and calls in a small favor that he
owes her. She too wants him to
investigate Marcone's kidnapping. That’s the
strange part.
Why would the paranormal
community care one bit about the whereabouts of a Chicago gangster? I don’t know, but any mortal, even if he’s a
wizard, who sticks his nose into this, will probably get it chopped off.
Good luck, Harry! You're gonna need it.
What’s To Like...
The title does not contain a typo; the
paperback I read was published in England, hence “Favour”. The text was in “American” though, so I guess
Orbit Books prints its books both ways.
Small
Favour is an Action-Intrigue story, and there is an abundance supply of
both in the storyline. Harry’s
investigation seems to trigger all sorts of attempts on his life, which in turn
keeps him wondering whether ulterior motives are in play, and if so, what those
are.
A slew of new creatures and
characters are introduced here, including Hobs
(servants of the Winter Faeries) and Gruffs (as
in “three Billy Goats Gruff” and servants of the Summer Faeries). Those creatures have evil intentions, but are puny in
power compared to the Denarians, aka “The Fallen”, who are now demonic in
nature but still retain their magical powers.
An impressive cast of recurring
characters including Thomas (Harry’s
half-brother and a vampire), Michael (Harry’s
friend-in-arms and Knight of the Cross), Molly (Michael’s daughter and apprentice wizard being trained
by Harry), Ivy (also known as The
Archive), and Karrin Murphy (a
Chicago Policewoman who looks after the city’s interest in these magical
shenanigans). They all have significant parts in the storyline and do their best to keep Harry alive.
Things build to a nail-biting,
twisty, and desperate—for both the Good forces and the Evil ones—ending. The Good Guys prevail (c’mon, you knew they would) but it comes at
considerable cost in terms of bloodshed and trauma. The last of 46 chapters is 30 pages long, and
serves as both an Epilogue for this book and a teaser for the next one, Turn Coat.
Ratings…
Amazon: 4.7*/5, based on 8,659 ratings
and 691 reviews.
Goodreads: 4.43*/5,
based on 112,931
ratings and 3,295 reviews.
Excerpts...
Anybody with an ounce of sense knows that
fighting someone with a significant advantage in size, weight, and reach is
difficult. If your opponent has you by
fifty pounds, winning a fight against him is dubious proposition, at best.
If your opponent has you by eight thousand
and fifty pounds, you’ve left the realm of combat and enrolled yourself in
Roadkill 101. Or possibly a Tom and
Jerry cartoon. (pg. 207)
Thomas frowned. “You aren’t just running your mouth, here,
are you? You’re serious?”
“It’s a worst-case scenario,” I said. “But Nicodemus could do it, so we’ve got to
proceed under the presumption that his intentions are in that category. The Denarians want to disrupt civilization,
and with the Archive under their control, they could do it. Maybe they’d use biological or chemicals
weapons instead. Maybe they’d crash the
world economy. Maybe they’d turn every
program on television into one of those reality shows.”
“That’s mostly done already, Harry.” (pg. 342)
“Punctuality is for
people with nothing better to do.” (pg.
345)
Small
Favour doesn’t skimp on the profanity.
I noticed 20 instances in the first 10% of the book, of which
three-quarters reference the Underworld. But only one of those twenty was an f-bomb. I’d call this par for the course for a
Dresden Files book
It’s difficult to find
anything else to whine about. Nevernever, the Faerie world, and Bob the Skull, which are two of my favorite tropes in
this series, play almost no part in the storyline. That’s all I can complain about. The lofty Goodreads rating of 4.43 is
fully justified.
Small Favour is both a
standalone novel and part of a (completed) 17-book series. I’ve now read the first ten books in the
series and Jim Butcher hasn’t lost his knack for spinning out captivating tales of Harry Dresden keeping Chicago safe from falling victim to various Dark Forces. Heck, Chicagoans aren’t even
aware that any paranormal creatures exist.
9 Stars. One last thing. I was impressed by the way Jim Butcher portrays the mob boss. Most writers would just cast him as a ruthless, totally-evil thug; but here we discover that Marcone has a noble side as well, even if he rarely gets to show it. I love it when the characters in a story are “gray”.
