| Ghost Story | |
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Ghost Story |
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| Author(s) | Jim Butcher |
| Cover artist | Christian McGrath |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | The Dresden Files |
| Genre(s) | Fantasy/Mystery |
| Publisher | Roc Hardcover |
| Publication date | July 26th, 2011 |
| Media type | Hardcover |
| Pages | 432 |
| ISBN | 045146379X |
| Preceded by | Changes |
| Followed by | Cold Days[1] |
Ghost Story is the 13th book in The Dresden Files, Jim Butcher's continuing urban fantasy series about Chicago wizard Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden. Initially, the story was to have been titled Dead, but this title was rejected and Butcher went with Ghost Story.
Contents |
Following the end of Changes, Harry finds himself on a set of train tracks, where he is saved by Carmichael. Taken to a police station, Harry encounters Captain Murphy, Karrin’s father, who tells him he must return to Earth and solve his murder, else those he loves will come to harm, or he can stay and work in Murphy’s department. Electing to return, Harry travels to Mortimer Lindquist's house, which is under siege by wraiths, spirits who have given into despair and rage, led by a powerful spirit, who is aided by Evil Bob, the remnant of Bob that Harry ordered him to excise that contained Kemmler’s knowledge and teachings. Led by Sir Stuart, the mass of spirits that protect Mort’s home drive the attackers away.
Reluctantly, Mort agrees to help Harry, and travels to Murphy’s home. After being put through a battery of tests, Molly, now a powerful illusionist and extremely disturbed, arrives and finally confirms Harry’s identity, breaking down in tears. Murphy explains that after Harry destroyed the entire Red Court, the power vacuum it left allowed a group called the Fomor to rise to power. Murphy’s house is then attacked, and Mort flees home.
Harry follows the attackers and finds they’re a group of teenagers who live in fear and under the protection of a practitioner named Aristedes, who protects them from the creatures in Chicago that have flocked to the city in Harry’s absence. Harry contacts one of them who’s sensitive to spirits, a youth named Fitz, and convinces him to meet Harry later. Harry returns to Mort to find his home destroyed and Mort abducted. Stuart passes on the last of his memories to Dresden to use as a weapon and becomes a mindless specter like the other spirits guarding Mort’s home. At his grave, Harry exchanges the story of his duel with Justin DuMorne and He Who Walks Behind with his godmother, the Leanansidhe, in exchange for the answer to 3 questions, learning he was murdered by a male he is acquainted with.
Harry tracks down Molly and finds that she operates under the pseudonym the Rag Lady and is now under the tutelage of the Leanansidhe, who uses brutal training methods to teach. Molly is now an adept spellcaster and Harry watches as she drives off a group of Fomor, although he intervenes to aid his former apprentice. Enlisting Molly’s aid, Harry tracks down Mortimer, and finds him trapped by the Corpsetaker, who is torturing Mort with Evil Bob’s help to take his body. During this, Father Forthill, who elected to help the teenagers in Aristedes' thrall, goes to reason with the practitioner and is captured. Daniel Carpenter and Butters try to rescue him and nearly succeed but are overpowered. Harry convinces the sensitive Fitz to confront Aristedes, and wrests control of the group from him, calling for aid for Forthill and Butters.
Harry enlists the Alphas, Karrin, Butters, and Molly to assault Corpsetakers hideout, along with the army of spirits from Mort’s home. Harry storms the hideout through the Nevernever, confronting Evil Bob, who overpowers Harry and nearly destroys him before being caught and held by Bob. Harry breaks into the hideout and confronts Corpsetaker, driving her away. However, while pursuing her he discovers Corpsetaker had taken Mort in order to have him summon the homicidal spirits from his home to her hideout. Seeing the army of spirits Harry summoned, Mort is dismayed. The Corpsetaker consumes the spirits, greatly increasing her power. With Harry's friends in a sleep spell, the Corpsetaker entered Butters which leads to Molly assaulting the spirit and casting her own spell which lets the Corpsetaker enter her, Dresden acts quickly grabbing the Corpsetakers ankle and enters Molly as well, leaving Butters's physical body lying on the ground and his Shade standing in disbelief and utter shock. Inside Molly’s mind, Molly uses a memory to aid in her defense after being gradually overpowered, spawning a memory from when Harry had a broken back lying in the Church, she confronts Harry with her feelings for him, as she will get to watch her entire family die of old age, and Harry is the only one whom she can feasibly love.
The memory assaults Harry. During Changes, realizing he must become the Winter Knight to save his daughter, and that Mab would then turn him into a monster, Harry contacted Kincaid and asked him to kill Dresden after the assault in South America, and then had Molly remove the memory. Realizing he ordered his own murder, Uriel appears, congratulating Dresden, explaining that, in a moment of despair, a fallen angel whispered into Dresden's ear. His direct influence allowed Uriel to take active action as well, allowing Harry to return, although he is shocked to learn Captain Murphy lied to Dresden about his loved ones coming to harm. Uriel offers Dresden a choice to work for him or move on to What Comes Next. Dresden asks to see how his loved ones fare, to make an informed choice.
Mort, taking control of the wraith swarm in Corpsetaker’s lair in her absence, comes upon Molly, who holds Corpsetaker in place, and the tortured souls Corpsetaker once held in thrall devour her spirit ending the battle. Mort not being able to find Harry standing around the aftermath finds Murphy who is crushed by confirmation of his death, but Mort surprises Harry by being genuinely comforting and wishing he had been bright enough to have known this side of Mort while he was alive, giving Murphy one last look, turns and walks to Uriel and asks to see his brother. Thomas, who Harry had not thought of since becoming a Spirit realizes how he couldn't have thought of Thomas without remembering the truth and shame of his own murder. Destroyed and bitter over Harry’s death, is elated when he realizes Justine has devised a method by which she and Thomas can be intimate once more. Before asking Uriel to show his next loved one, Uriel understands and takes Harry to see his daughter Maggie, which has been adopted by the Carpenters, who love her dearly, with the protection of Mouse, whom Harry embraces one last time. Happy that Michael is under the protection of a squad of angels, realizes those he loves are safe as they can be, Harry elects to move on.
He then awakens on Demonreach, under the care of Queen Mab, who saved Harry the moment he fell into the darkness of the lake, her own domain, and the island, which kept him alive. Distrusting of Harry, Mab informs Harry that she knew he would have tried to create a plan to end the contract of becoming the Winter Knight, and that it had backfired. Annoyed at Uriel's influence, tells Harry to prepare himself for her to turn him into her creature, and Uriel uses his opportunity to tell Harry only he can choose who he is, while Mab cannot. Harry tells Mab he won’t be her creature, enraging her, but tells her he will be her devoted Knight, the greatest she has ever had, but that he shall do it his way, else Mab can turn him into another mindless, and worthless, thug. Mab, still enraged but also ecstatic, tells Harry to prepare himself, and pulls them into the Winter Court.
Many major characters who have appeared in a Dresden Book have at least a cameo appearance here—back from the dead, so to speak.
In a release on Jim Butcher's website on June 27, 2011,[2] he reported that, due to personal reasons, James Marsters, who had voiced all the previous Dresden Files novels in audiobook form, would be unable to voice "Ghost Story". Instead, Glover, the actor who portrays Lionel Luthor on Smallville, recorded the book.
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