Review: Turncoat (The Dresden Files #11)

Now Chicago's only professional wizard, Harry Dresden, is about to find that the one thing more dangerous than his mortal enemies may be his closest allies...

Turncoat, by Jim Butcher, is the eleventh novel in the Dresden Files. For years, the White Council has held a death mark over Harry's head. In return, Harry stays out of major trouble when it comes to the Laws of Magic. He is still perceived as a black sheep among the wizards and as a sacrificial lamp by others. But none regard with him more suspicion and disdain than Morgan, a veteran Warden with a huge grudge against warlocks who bend the rules.

When Morgan turns up at Harry's doorstep asking for help and protection, Harry isn't exactly eager to leap into action. Then, Harry learns that Morgan has been accused of treason against the White Council. The only punishment that fits that crime is death. Morgan's on the run, but he wants his name cleared. He needs someone who has a tendency to support the underdog--Harry. Now, Harry must uncover a traitor within the White Council, hide the cranky Morgan, and protect himself from further scrutiny. With no other choice, a single mistake can cost Harry his head.

The Warden Morgan has been accused of treason against the Wizards of the White Council-and there's only one final punishment for that crime. He's on the run, he wants his name cleared, and he needs someone with a knack for backing the underdog. Like Harry Dresden. Now, Harry must uncover a traitor within the Council, keep a less-than-agreeable Morgan under wraps, and avoid coming under scrutiny himself. And a single mistake could cost Harry his head...

Turncoat is absolutely the best novel in the Dresden Files series so far. The story (action, suspense, and gore) becomes very intense in the second half of the novel. Harry pushes the limit when it reaches out to his allies to plan a complicated trap with little room for error. His techniques (and luck) continue to improve with experience. At the same time, his well-coordinated strategies do have consequences. I must warn you that the ending will make you both sad and sympathetic for Dresden because he will lose two people that had become a major influence in his life.

Stay tuned for the twelfth novel in the Dresden Files series, Changes.

Update: Final Book of All Souls Trilogy Will Be Released in July 2014

Finally the moment we have all been waiting for! The final book of the All Souls Trilogy, The Book of Life: A Novel (All Souls Trilogy) will be released on July 14, 2014. Stay tuned for updates on the Deborah Harkness' official website.

From Amazon.com:

The highly anticipated finale to the #1 New York Times bestselling trilogy that began with A Discovery of Witches.

After traveling through time in Shadow of Night, the second book in Deborah Harkness’s enchant­ing series, historian and witch Diana Bishop and vampire scientist Matthew Clairmont return to the present to face new crises and old enemies. At Matthew’s ancestral home at Sept-Tours, they re­unite with the cast of characters from A Discovery of Witches—with one significant exception. But the real threat to their future has yet to be revealed, and when it is, the search for Ashmole 782 and its miss­ing pages takes on even more urgency. In the tril­ogy’s final volume, Harkness deepens her themes of power and passion, family and caring, past deeds and their present consequences. In ancestral homes and university laboratories, using ancient knowl­edge and modern science, from the hills of the Auvergne to the palaces of Venice and beyond, the couple at last learn what the witches discovered so many centuries ago.

With more than one million copies sold in the United States and appearing in thirty-eight foreign editions and translations, A Discovery of Witches and Shadow of Night have landed on all of the major bestseller lists and garnered rave reviews from countless publications. Eagerly awaited by Harkness’s legion of fans, The Book of Life brings this superbly written series to a deeply satisfying close.