"Summer Knight", the fourth Harry Dreseden novel from Jim Butcher, kicks things up a notch for Chicago's favorite (and only) Wizard P.I. This battle isnt' just about Harry living through it, but its about saving all of Chicago and possibly the world. Harry is about as depressed and rundown as could be after the events in "Grave Peril". He is haunted by his failure to save Susan and his obsession with trying to find a 'cure' to remedy that sitution. The vampiress are gunning for him and his own magical "White Council" is about to cast him out or hand him over to the vamps unless he proves his worth. Then his 'godmother' sells his contract to the Summer Queen and what she demands of him makes all the other stuff look like a vacation. This was a great installment in the series. I read through it like I was eating chocolate. The story seemed more cohesive than previous volumes. Dreseden and the wolves were witty and fun. The scene in the Wal-Mart is my favorite of all the Dresden action scenes. That is not to say that this was a perfect book. I was sympathetic the first four or five times Harry sobbed, but after that it felt redundant. I felt for him, really, but it was overkill for this PI to cry so frequently. Also, Bob wasn't in the story enough for my liking! The story could have been a little bit clearer on certain points as well. A few times I got confused over how Dresend put something together and I had to read through it again. Overall this is probably the best in the series thus far and I look forward to my future visists with Harry as I run across him in my TBR stack. ( )

Maybe Harry Dresden is finally coming around. I was worried that the small weaknesses of the earlier Dresden books would accumulate as the series progressed. Harry was in danger of becoming a one-man idiot plot generator, due to his apparent inability to communicate and trust others.

In Summer Knight, Harry appears to have learned when to ask for help and, as a result, the sequence of plot events feels more natural than in previous volumes. The number of characters and encyclopedic scope of Butcher's world-building are rich, but occasionally befuddling. I struggled at times to keep track of the names of the various Fairy Queens and the changelings. It's not helping that I'm not reading directly though the series, in order to keep a fresh perspective.

Finally, kudos go to Butcher for developing Karryn Murphy's character more in Summer Knight. She's coping with the psychic damage from book three and seems to snap out of it when the situation gets dire at the Battle of Wal-Mart, which I'm sure will prove to be a pivotal turning point for Dresden and Murphy's partnership. ( )

Harry Dresden becomes embroiled in the world of faerie and faerie politics. This isn't good, for anyone involved.

Harry is busy keeping himself alive, some of the decisions he's making are very complicated.

Interesting and involved Harry is quite an interesting character and I look forward to reading more in this series. ( )

As much as I love this series, this was my least favorite so far. It wasn't as interesting as some of the other storylines have been. However I cannot wait to read the rest of the series! ( )

[Amy] Well, I think they're finally growing on me - at least, this is the first instance of the Dresden books for which I have reached the end without feeling vaguely guilty about having just devoured the whole thing. I don't know what's changed (either with them or with me), but there y'go. And I'd obviously acknowledged that I was going to keep reading the things anyway, as I'd bought all of them through White Night when I saw them all arrayed in a used bookstore, sometime after reading Grave Peril.

This installment gives more insight into the workings of the Faerie courts in this universe, as well as a bit more about the other wizards. I'm not really making much effort to keep track of all the bits and pieces of the worldbuilding, though, because I'm getting the impression it doesn't really matter that much, and I don't want to have the enjoyment of the fluff spoiled by noticing inconsistencies in it. If I turn out to be wrong, well, one thing that has been annoying me already is the ungodly repetition of assorted salient points of backstory and world-rules, so I feel confident that anything I particularly need to remember will be delivered to me at the appropriate time, all wrapped up with a shiny bow.

That said, I'm still having a grand time with them, so what the hell.
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