Finished Dead Beat by Jim Butcher. This is the seventh book in his urban fantasy series about Chicago wizard and private investigator Harry Dresden.

In this one, an old enemy of Harry’s orders him to find a rare book or else she’ll do bad things to Harry’s friend, Karrin Murphy. Harry agrees, but little does he know that there are several big, bad necromancers in town, all of whom want a) the book, b) to kill each other, and c) wouldn’t mind taking out Harry too. But Harry is determined to keep bad stuff from happening, even if it means his own death …

I like this series a lot, especially the characters. Wise-cracking Harry, lovable Mouse, conflicted Thomas, funny Bob. I think the magic is believable and always interesting, and I enjoy the recurring characters who pop up.

But I did have a few quibbles with this one. First of all, at the beginning, Harry lets Murphy (who, come on, we all know that he really loves) go off to Hawaii with another guy. That was dumb, Harry. Real dumb. This also meant that Murphy wasn’t in this book, which I thought was a real loss. Her tough-as-nails character is one of my favorites.

There’s also a lot of action in this book. Now, I like action scenes probably more than most people do, but there were just so many and Harry got so beat up, it felt like we just went from one fight to another. I really would have liked to reach in the book and give Harry some aspirin and permission to take a shower and get some sleep.

And I kind of lost track of which villain was which toward the end. There were a lot of bad guys in this one.

But the book also featured all the things I love about the series. Wisecracks from Harry and others, a visit to the local wizard hangout, a run-in with the mob guy, and more.  

So overall, not my favorite Dresden book, but still a solid read. Thumbs up.

Up next: Something from the TBR pile.

Books in my TBR pile: About 18.

What about you guys? Anyone reading anything good right now? Share in the comments.