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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‘Family. Nothing but an accident of birth. Family is meaningless. It is nothing but the drive of blood to further its own. Random combination of genes. It is utterly insignificant.’
‘Your children don’t think that,’ I said. ‘They think family is important.’
He laughed. ‘Of course they think that. I have trained them to do so. It is a simple and convenient way to control them. (The enemy confronted by Harry.)

After the events of Death Masks, things in Blood Rites get deeper and more personal. This book is largely about  family and relationships (see the snippet above) and these themes, as you might expect by this point in the series, are developed here and exciting changes occur as a result.

The other main thrust of the book is dealing with vampires, and previous readers will remember Harry’s had his problems with them in the past! Yes, we still know he’s responsible for the on-going Cold War between the wizard White Council and the vampire White, Red and Black Courts. But here Harry has his own private issues with vampires to contend with too …

Harry is asked for a favour by Thomas, his vampire friend, to take on the job of investigating the violent deaths of two film stars employed by famous film producer Arturo Genosa. Genosa is convinced he’s been cursed and that the deaths are the result. Harry agrees to look into the attacks and keep an eye on Genosa, even when he finds out that Arturo’s main output is pornography. However, the attacks increase in number to the point where more innocent people are being killed. Harry therefore becomes determined to stop the attacks, discover the reason for the deaths and to bring the murderer to justice.

This is even when it seems that Thomas’s vampiric family, the notorious White Court Raiths, are involved – meaning that Harry might have to go up against the dreaded vampire collective known as the scourge. Harry also finds that Mavra, a Black Court vampire who we first met in Grave Peril, has returned and desperately wants to kill him.

So, this time around we have large parts of the plot based around the vampire Mavra and the Raith family. The fabulous Thomas also becomes a major part of the narrative and his complicated background is revealed. The Raith family set-up is quite frightening in its harsh configuration. In particular Lara, Thomas’ sister, is impressively scary (as well as sexy). And as a result of events here, no doubt she’ll appear more later in the series. We also witness a major life-changing development for Harry, as well as experiencing revelations about his dead mother.

In summary, this is a fast-paced tale that is driven both by the complex relationship between Harry and Thomas, and the tension between Harry and the creepily scary world of Chicago’s vampires.

Despite everything thrown against him, Harry’s laconic putdowns and his innate moral compass show a hero with staying power in a tale that both entertains the reader and enriches the Dresden experience. This time, it’s personal: and all the better for it.