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Death Masks (The Dresden Files #5)
by Jim Butcher - 2/5
I won't linger too much on the autopsy of what I read. This book died on me. It came as unexpected. Someone told me that Summer Knight was a disappointment and Death Masks its superior. The fact that for me the reverse was true shouldn't have been a surprise. But books' reputations cannot be counted on. They are unreliable.
Fear not, you'll take something from reading Death Masks. I did too. But, such rewards were too few.I think that the presence of a character such as Shiro complicated matters. The two major happenings to Shiro were treated shallowly. I mean Dresden got over the first Shiro event by making out with his belle(more of that later, or that's what I'd say if I wanted to write uselessly about Jim Butcher's love litanies), and got over the second by bellowing out a big yee-haw! I thought Bob's complete and utter disappearance was a non sequitur. I thought the Dresden world got bigger. I thought the magic was nothing new. The little kids like Molly and "Ivy" added little. The one with the best role in the end was Marcone. I don't want to like a drug baron. But in the end, the things that can please me were simply in short supply here. Reading is, for the discerning, a gamble. That's how it should be. I'll be there when it pays off.
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