Rating: 4.5/5
Harry is hired by a priest from Italy to find a very special artifact that has been stolen. The thief plans to sell it to a wealthy person in Chicago. Harry soon learns that the artifact is none other than the Shroud of Turin and he strongly suspects that the wealthy businessman is John Marcone. Harry meets two other sword-wielding men of God like Michael who help him track down the shroud. They learn of a plan to unleash a deadly curse and have to work to stop that from happening. In the meantime, Harry is challenged to a dual by a vampire named Ortega. The vampires want Dresden's blood for what he did to the Red Court vampire Bianca. Ortega promises that Chicago will be made neutral ground in the vampire/White Council war if Harry wins.
To top it all off, Susan, Harry's half-vampire ex girlfriend has returned (albeit temporarily) and they reconnect.
There were a lot of things happening in this book as usual, although the plot was a little more doomsday than some of the books have been. The villains who would unleash a deadly plague (slightly more cartoonish/comic book-esque than the regular Dresden Files villains) are controlled by demons, and the possession happens by picking up a coin. Harry picks up one such coin at the beginning of the book, and they spend a little time trying to get him to open himself up to it. Harry has no interest of course, but the lure is there, and he has to figure out how to handle the coin. The vampire dual is over fairly quickly in the book, and we get to see Thomas of the White Court appear in all his sass and allure as Ortega's second. We meet an important character, Kinkaid, who is acting as a bodyguard to the mediator of the dual. My absolute favorite part of this whole book concerns Marcone. It is very clear the Harry DESPISES Marcone, and of course the crime boss is not particularly on the up and up. However, he is SMART and you can tell that he isn't cruel and spiteful. He is very powerful because he has made calculating decisions. He doesn't kill without reason. I find his character extremely fascinating, and we learn more about him at the end of this book -- it makes his character make a lot more sense!
This was a solid installment in the Dresden File series. I enjoyed it!
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