Review: Ghost Story (Dresden Files #13)

Now, the late Harry Dresden will have to pull off the ultimate trick without using any magic—or face an eternity as just another lost soul…

Ghost Story, by Jim Butcher, is the thirteenth novel in the Dresden Files series. At 500 pages, this is the longest Dresden Files novel to date. After an unknown assassin murders him and leaves him to die in the dark depths of Lake Michigan, Harry Dresden hopes that he's heading to a better place. However, being dead doesn't make his life any easier. Trapped between life and death, Harry learns that his friends are in serious trouble in Chicago. Only by finding his murderer can he save his friends and move on—a feat which would be a lot easier if he had a body and access to his powers. Worse still are the malevolent shadows that roam Chicago, controlled by a dark entity that wants Harry to suffer even in death.

I had high expectations for this book ever since I read Changes and the novella in Side Jobs. At nearly 500 pages, it was a big of a drag to finish the entire book. In post-Dresden Chicago, chaos roams the streets. There were moments when Harry reflected too much on himself and not the crisis at hand -- saving his friends from an undead necromancer who wants to take over the world. I struggled with the fact that Dresden knew that he asked a companion to take him out after the events that occurred in Changes, yet as a ghost he forgets that he initiated the order. There were high and low moments throughout the book where I wondered where Butcher was taking his readers. It was not one of Butcher's best novels (some parts were boring), but I am glad to shift focus to Dresden's next role as the Winter Knight in Cold Days.

Stay tuned for the fourteenth novel in the Dresden Files series, Cold Days (Dresden Files).