Fool Moon is the second book in the Dresden Files series and it’s a direct sequel to Storm Front, the previously reviewed novel about the wizard detective Harry Dresden. If you so happened to read said review, you would know that I found the first installment in the series a nice, quick read. Sorta like Harry Potter all grown up, living in Chicago. Fool Moon is more of the same, which could be a good thing.

But it’s not.

Now, let me just mention that there is very little love lost between me and detective novels, or for that sake anything involving some kind of crime or mystery to be solved. I’ve read a thousand books on this subject - some of them quite good and most of them not. Storm Front was a different read for me mainly because it contains elements that are not often found in the genre; magic, demons and a whole lot of supernatural ass-kicking. Sounds fun? It sure as hell should, ’cause that what it is. In fact it’s so fast paced and action filled that I at times at a hard time catching my breath.

Let me give you a small taste of what the plot is like (without giving it away, of course): Harry Dresden is out of work (again). His contact at the Special Investigation department at the Chicago Police, Murphy, hasn’t been talking to him since the last book and since the state provided most of his income, he’s now flat out broke. Good thing that Murphy happens to find him and take him back. You see, there has been some weird killings as of late and all happening around the full moon. When Harry finds wolf prints on the murder scene, he knows he’s dealing with something out of the ordinary, and we’re only just beginning…

This book has in my opinion a lot of faults and many of them originate by me having read Storm Front. Fool Moon is essentially the same book and especially so in the first half. It’s only after you’ve turned the 200 pages mark that things start to get fresh and as fun as I remembered the previous book to be. Don’t get me wrong - the last two hundred pages were a blast, put I felt this book suffered greatly from lack of originality. The same things started happening all over again as if Butcher thought he’d happened upon the perfect formula for a book when all he’d ever managed was to hit something very mediocre in his first attempt. This book became accordingly relegated from mediocre to “not that good”.

Butcher’s prose isn’t all that great either, but it serves to drive the plot forward. What I did miss, however, was the good sidekicks. This series has so far only provided one and a half good character; the one being Harry Dresden and the half being Murphy, his contact at the PD. I say she’s only half because she is at times somewhat irrational, she’s always predictable and half the time she’s really more of a type then a full blown person.

To sum up: Fool Moon is worse than its predecessor, Storm Front, in many ways, but it’s still quite fun to read. I have to admit that it put me off reading much more of this series and I wouldn’t recommend you to pick it up either. This is easily the worst read I’ve had in a long time. 4/10.