Peace Talks, Dresden Files book #118, by Jim Butcher
3.0 Stars
7-28-2020

A serviceable entry in the series. Jim Butcher has been much slower than normal to publish this most recent book, due to A) divorce-and-remarriage and B) trying to move into a new house, and the changing living conditions disrupting his productivity. I am highly sympathetic to this; keeping multiple women satisfied is *exhausting*, and it's not made any easier when your sleep and environment are irregular. So I am grading this most recent book in the series on a slight curve. His basic story telling style still works; Butcher uses a sort of Mad Max: Fury Road pacing where he starts the action on page 5, and then just keeps compounding and complicating that action for the next 300 pages. It makes for some very quick and easy to read books. Things break down slightly in this book as it is shorter than normal, so the action doesn't get quite as deep/involved as we are used to, and also because this book is really just Part I, so things end on a lull between story beats rather than with a full resolution. There's also sort of a spottiness to the writing, with minor plotting mistakes and a lack of really stellar set-pieces. It is not his best work and tends to fall back on older beats and cliches that he has used frequently before. Anyway, despite the flaws I'm looking forward to Part II being the next book that I read, sometime in August.