Skin Game by Jim Butcher
Book 15 of the Dresden Files series
Read by James Marsters
Genre: urban fantasy
Format: hardback, ebook & audiobook
About Skin Game:
Harry Dresden, Chicago’s only professional wizard, is about to have a very bad day….Source: Info in the About Skin Game was taken from GoodReads at https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19486421-skin-game on 05/07/2014.
Because as Winter Knight to the Queen of Air and Darkness, Harry never knows what the scheming Mab might want him to do. Usually, it’s something awful.
He doesn’t know the half of it….
Mab has just traded Harry’s skills to pay off one of her debts. And now he must help a group of supernatural villains — led by one of Harry’s most dreaded and despised enemies, Nicodemus Archleone — to break into the highest-security vault in town so that they can then access the highest-security vault in the Nevernever.
It’s a smash-and-grab job to recover the literal Holy Grail from the vaults of the greatest treasure hoard in the supernatural world — which belongs to the one and only Hades, Lord of the freaking Underworld and generally unpleasant character. Worse, Dresden suspects that there is another game afoot that no one is talking about. And he’s dead certain that Nicodemus has no intention of allowing any of his crew to survive the experience. Especially Harry.
Dresden’s always been tricky, but he’s going to have to up his backstabbing game to survive this mess — assuming his own allies don’t end up killing him before his enemies get the chance….
My Thoughts:
This is the only book in this series that took me this long to read. It actually didn't get interesting until Butters glided into the scene with his skateboard glowing orange. I bought this book on pre-order and I just finished it now. That's how long it took me to read this book. Not a usual pace for a Harry Dresden book at all! Hopefully Peace Talks wouldn't be as dragging... **fingers crossed**
When it was first announced that Harry Dresden 15 will be Skin Game, I was wondering why the book is titled as such. I presumed that there will be skin walkers or some such. And there are some such, but getting to it is the real journey. And that is the beauty of the plot. Dragging though it may be, but the plot is still substantial and unpredictable.
Empirical Evaluation:
Story telling quality = 2
Character development = 5
Story itself = 3.5
Writing Style = 3
Ending = 4
World building = 5
Cover art = 5
Pace = 1.5
Plot = 4
Narration = 4
Overall Rating: 3.5 out of 5 cherries
Dresden Files Books:
Though I do have a few nitpicking issues with this book, I am willing to overlook all of them for the wonderful reading experience I had with this book!! Another salient point why I like Jim Butcher's work is that all his books have coherent story structures. Has a beginning, a central dilemma and an ending. Always. Even if the book is part of a series. And even though he also adds teasers for the next book at the end, enough to keep the readers hooked to the series. (As if I need hooking!) I say Jim Butcher has a very good writing style indeed! And it's nice to get to see Mouse again. I missed the furball!!
!!
I would like to thank 
