Mark Yon has been a reviewer and web administrator at SFFWorld, one of the world’s biggest genre forum sites, for nearly ten years. He has also been on the David Gemmell Awards organisation committee for the last two years. In this series of rereads, Mark will guide us below through the whole of Jim Butcher’s fabulous Dresden Files series as we count down to the new hardback Ghost Story at the end of July.
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Summer Knight starts with Harry on a rapidly darkening spiral of defeat and sheer bad luck. Things move quickly from the beginning with an improbable portent of doom – a storm of toads! We also see an assassination attempt on Harry, and all in the first ten pages. After all, it seems so much easier to remove the apparent cause of all the problems, rather than working to solve them.

Harry survives; but is then given a tricky case to crack. Harry must assist the two Faerie Queens, Summer and Winter, in solving a crime. Ronald Reuel, the Summer Queen’s right-hand man and the titular Summer Knight, has been murdered. And the Winter Queen, Mab, has conveniently and perhaps unfairly been blamed for his demise. 

Despite his unease, Harry is forced to help Mab for two reasons. Firstly, Mab has bought an obligation from his fairy godmother (no, really!) that Harry owed her. And paying off such debts is important in the world of the NeverNever. Harry therefore ends up owing Mab three favours, so is duty-bound to assist her in order to reduce his debt. And, as above, she’s demanded that he clear her name of murder. Complications ensure when Mab also declares Dresden as her chosen Emissary, with the permission and authority to conduct this investigation. This is an honour, but as ever when dealing with the NeverNever, it is a privilege that has a cost. Harry realises that such a commitment will have potential consequences for him that he could well do without.

Unfortunately he has little choice. The second reason for helping Mab is that the governing body of wizards, the White Council, force him to take on the job. Fearing that Queen Mab may become involved in the war between vampires and wizards, the Council make Harry an offer he simply can’t refuse.

Faced with either being expelled and turned over to Red Court vampires for provoking a wizards vs. vampire war, or helping Mab and maintaining his full wizard status in the White Council, Harry has little alternative but to accept Mab’s offer. However, time is short – as Midsummer Night approaches, there is due the usual handing over of power in the world of Faerie as we go from Summer to Winter. The death of the Summer Knight has shifted the power balance in the Winter Court’s favour. Summer must therefore attack Winter at Midsummer to maintain control over their remaining power. Unless balance between the Faerie Courts is restored, there will be permanent, irreparable change.

So, on a deadline, Harry must solve the case and do things he really doesn’t want to do – all in order to avoid trial, expulsion and becoming a living slave to the Summer Queen. Harry becomes embroiled in the world of Faerie (first seen in a little detail in Grave Peril), and more dramatically, the complexity of Wizard and Faerie politics. For, as you might expect, the solution is not as simple as you might think …

Things have turned even darker and more intriguingly complicated here.  To add to the mix this time around we get the return of some old characters, as well as the introduction of interesting new ones that will reappear later in the series. We also get to fill in some of Harry’s past and get a degree of closure on some aspects of it that previously had been left mysterious.

In addition to the great plot itself, what I really liked about this one is how Jim has expanded the world. This is shown by the variety of places visited – we go further into the realms of Winter and Summer, visit the NeverNever again, and are observers to the political machinations of the Wizard Council. In Summer Knight, Harry’s world, to the reader, is broadening and becoming richer. And some of the events here will have repercussions in Harry’s life later.

It is here that as a reader I realised Harry’s background is complicated (in a good way!) and that the world of Harry Dresden is far more than just ‘a wizard fighting crime’. This book moves things along very nicely.