Book of The Month: Death Masks (Book Five Of The Dresden Files)

If Storm Front was the Jim Butcher's dream equivalent of a TV pilot for the adventures of Harry Dresden in literary form, then Death Masks is a multi-million dollar Hollywood blockbuster.

Harry is drawn into a hunt for the Turin Shroud, which a wonderful immortal villain called Nicodemus wants to use as an Apocalypse trigger while local gangster Marcone wants it for his own purposes. Throw in the return of Harry's ex-girlfriend (now a half-vampire), a bunch of super-demons tied to the 30 silver pieces of Judas Iscariot, a vampire noble out for Harry's blood, a young girl who holds all mankind's accumulated knowledge (but still needs to be put to bed in good time) and an order of holy knights armed with magic swords and you've got the recipe for a rock-and-roll read.

Butcher is a master of the set-piece, as evidenced by the climax of Storm Front, and Death Masks has its fair share - with memorable ones including a final confrontation on the roof of a speeding train (pure James Bond/Mission Impossible) and a free-for-all human versus vampire scrap in Chicago's Wrigley Field baseball stadium.

That's not to say that Death Masks is a perfect pulp action read. The story grinds to an uncomfortable halt when Harry and his ex get hot and heavy in an embarrassingly sophomoric sex scene that uses the word "hardness" a bit too often.

Which leads to my main criticism with Butcher's writing (this came out in 2003, and haven't read anything he has done since) - his repetition. From Harry saying "Hell's bells" over-and-over again to repeating words in his descriptive prose - sometimes in the same sentence (e.g. "a grizzled detective in a bad suit took charge and started directing suits and uniforms around." - page 362).

This has always been a bugbear of mine (from my journalistic training) and something I studiously try to avoid where possible. It interrupts the reader's flow, which is a problem in any book but more pronounced in a pacy action story. But then again I'm not a published author, so what do I know?

A couple of minor quibbles over a cracking book. Check it out!