David Sarkies's Reviews > Death Masks

Harry and the shroud of Turin
12 June 2013

I think this is number five and I must say that the quality of the series seems to be degrading, but then I suspect that this is simply the law of diminishing returns coming into play. In the first few books there seemed to be a lot more twists in the story and it was difficult to see how the book was going to progress, and when you thought that you had worked it out, it suddenly took a new turn.

There is none of that in this book.

Basically the Shroud of Turin has been stolen by, guess what, a bunch of psychotic demons, and even though there are mention of other types of demons, we only encounter one lot here, and they are pretty nasty as well (but then what do you expect from demons, tea in the park with flowers?). Also, at the beginning we have the vampires return because, well, the war between the wizards and the vampires is continuing and there is always someone out there gunning for poor old Harry (especially since the blame for starting the war lies with him, but they don't really want to end the war because while they don't like fighting, they do have ulterior motives in mind).

Micheal the Paladin returns, along with two others who are also like him, one being some big hulking Russian dude, the other being some old Japanese guy who became a Christian because he went to a rally where Elvis was playing and after the rally he was invited to come down the front to meet 'The King' though it turned out that 'The King' wasn't Elvis (evidence that Butcher really can't tell a joke).

As mentioned I found this book to be a little dry and dull and once I had finished it I sort of wondered whether I am going to continue reading them. I still have another one sitting around that my friend lent me (which is the next in the series) so I will probably read that to see how it goes, but from this one the series does not really seem to be going anywhere. However, fortunately, unlike a number of other fantasy series (such as the Wheel of Time) these books are complete in themselves so you are not left hanging waiting to see what happens when the next one comes out. In fact, I could stop reading at this book and not worry about what happens to Harry.