Redheaded Reviews: Summer Knight by Jim Butcher

It's raining toads and that portends that something is off in the universe. Harry Dresden is still in trouble for causing the war between the Red Court of Vampires and the White Council of Witches. He needs to go before the council. However, he's spent the last several months holed up in his lab trying to find a cure for vampirism so that he and his girlfriend Susan can be together again. She still hasn't fully turned because she hasn't taken a life yet, but it's only a matter of time.

Harry gets a visit from the Winter Faerie Queen Mab who bought his indenture to his godmother and wants him to do three tasks for her. The first is to find out who killed a man whose death appears to be an accidental fall down the stairs. She is being accused in Faerie of his murder and wants her name cleared. Harry turns her down.

Then Harry goes before the White Council who want to trade him to the Vampires for an end to the war. But the war probably wouldn't end even with him being turned over, his few friends argue for him. And Harry can bring the safe passage to them in the Nevernever by working for Mab who helps to control it. It is decided that he should go on trial to determine whether or not he is a wizard.

On this trial, he will bring peace to the Faerie Kingdom. Not an easy task for anyone. It turns out that the dead guy was the Summer Knight of the Faerie Court, a possible human task performed this time by a human. This is why the courts are planning on going to war. The Summer Court is weak without the Knight's mantel and its near midsummer which is when the Summer Queen is strongest so she feels the need to bring the fight now while she has a chance. Oh, yes, there are three queens on each side and the Winter Knight as suspects.

Also, a suspect is the newly arrived Elaine from his past who supposedly died in a fire he accidentally set killing his mentor. She is the Summer Ambassador to his Winter Ambassador and has been hanging out in the Summer Court for a while. Billy and the other Alpha werewolves show up to help him when he needs it as does the cop Murphy who is having trouble recovering from her last encounter with things supernatural.

In this book, Harry is not really working with Murphy like he did in the other books because the suspects are all mostly Supernatural and can't be locked up. Harry will be temped mightly by both Courts, Winter and Summer, to make a bargain with them. He will have to show them he really is a strong wizard to be able to navigate the Courts and survive. But this is Harry and surviving is what he does best and this book shows that to its fullest extent. This book lives up to the strong others that came before it and shows why Butcher is one to read. I give it five out of five stars.

Quotes

For me, chivalry isn’t dead; it’s an involuntary reflex.

-Jim Butcher (Summer Knight p 123)

I’m thinking that if this dilemma grows any more horns I’m going to shoot it and put it up on the wall.

-Jim Butcher (Summer Knight p 125)

I’m pretty sure lurking in a dark alley to mug me with your apology isn’t the usual way to go about saying you’re sorry. But I didn’t read that Mars-Venus book.

-Jim Butcher (Summer Knight p 220)

You foil a Faerie Queen. Survive your own execution. Get away from certain death. And get stuck up a freaking tree.

-Jim Butcher (Summer Knight p 376)

She was also mad. Loopy as a crochet convention.

-Jim Butcher (Summer Knight p 412)

The only people who never hurt are dead.

-Jim Butcher (Summer Knight p 436)