Dresden Files Reread - Grave Peril Chapter 11

Content Note: This chapter of Grave Peril, and this blog post, discuss the mutilation and death of several small animals, including a cat. There will be no particulars discussed here, but there are some in the chapter itself. 

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There's an unmarked police car in front of Harry's apartment when he gets out of the cab. Rudolf is briefly reintroduced - I'd forgotten that he was supposed to be good-looking, I think I have his appearance permanently confused with Harris's - and we're told that he doesn't like Harry. Harry attributes this to Rudolf's having "cut and run" during what I guess must have been the Kravos fight, describe only as "the bust several months back", and it's interesting to me that this is presented without explanation. Of course Rudolf resents Harry for having born witness to his cowardice. No need to spell it out. 

Rudolf tells Harry to get in the car, and Harry very reasonably asks if he's under arrest. Stallings, Murphy's new partner since Carmichael's death in Fool Moon, steps in and greets Harry much more politely, and tells him that Murphy wants him to take a look at a crime scene. 

Harry asks if it can wait until tomorrow, which, Harry, did you stop relying on the city government for most of your income at some point in the last year, that you can afford to brush off a job when Murphy tries to give you one? Rudolf makes a further attempt to be a dick, interestingly echoing Murphy's book 1 sentiment that Harry is somehow obligated to follow Murphy's orders, but Stallings cuts him off again and tells Harry that Murphy said to say that it's personal - it's Micky Malone. We get a reintroduction on Murphy, including a note that she's been getting better at handling the supernatural on their own. Malone was hamstrung during the loup garou fight, and got through physical therapy in time for the confrontation with Kravos, but retired after that, concluding that his limp slowed him down too much. Harry, naturally, blames himself for this, but all I'm blaming him for is being this evasive about the Kravos thing. A first-time reader will at this point be wondering if they somehow missed a book between Fool Moon and Grave Peril, not impossible in 2001, when book-to-book continuity, and the expectation of reading a series strictly in order, were considerably more variable than they are today. 

Harry asks what's going on, but Stallings either can't or won't explain - he says Harry needs to see it for himself, and Harry suddenly remembers that Murphy pays most of his bills. 

Bucktown looks a little spooky this time of year, this time of day. The buildings started out small and


crowded, so when the neighborhood became more prosperous, they didn't have anywhere to expand but up, and the tall, spindly houses do weird things to the light. I'd have to check, but I believe this is our first timestamp for this book, placing us in autumn, about a year out from the werewolf situation. I'll be keeping an eye out for more specific timestamps - proximity  to Halloween matters here, for the vampire plot and the nightmare plot both. 

Photo by Lerone Pieters on Unsplash

As soon as they're out of the car, Harry starts picking up some kind of bad vibes. He puts out his hand to try and pin them down more precisely. Rudolf accuses Harry of showboating, but Stallings tells him to let Harry work, that they've seen what he can do, which is yet more hinting about Kravos, but also characterization for Stallings, who is either newly introduced or was previously just a name, and is here being placed in sharp contrast to Carmichael's initial hostility and ongoing skepticism. 

The bad vibes eventually lead Harry to a series of unpleasantly dead animals. Any one of them alone wouldn't have set up his spidey sense, but all of them together did. Stallings asks what could have done this, and Harry says he doesn't know and they'd better go inside. I feel like what could have done this is not the best possible question here. It's dead animals. Lots of things can kill small animals, including like, a regular dog. The relevant question is who, or what, would do this. 

Sorry for the very short post. This is the second shortest chapter in the book, at nine minutes and seventeen seconds, and it's fairly transitional - we're setting tone here, establishing character, and getting from point A to point B - honestly, this could probably have been folded into the subsequent chapter, but here we are. My life has once more been cast into disarray (edited to add: I wrote this post a week after finding out that I had to move. In mid December. My life is now in the process of getting cast back out of disarray.) so I can't make any promises about the frequency of my posts going forward, but I'll do my best (edited to add: the problem is now that I'm getting into a new work rhythm in a new environment, so we should get back on track in the forseeable). Until next time, be gay, do crimes, and read all the things!