Jean-Paul’s rating: 2/5 stars

And I’m done with The Dresden Files (both the books and the TV show).  Jim Butcher is lucky that fanboys (and fangirls) are so easy to please.  That is the only reason I can offer for how popular this series of books is.  With “Fool Moon”, the trick is to throw as many different types of werewolves at the reader as possible to cover up the fact that every single character behaves stupidly and changes motives on a whim just to advance the story.

And, oh look, another murdered naked woman!  Why is she naked?  Either female wizards are required to get naked to perform ritual ceremonies and male wizards are not or Butcher just wanted to add another pointlessly sexualized murder victim to titillate the fanboys.

Let’s see what other stupidities we have going on in this book.  There’s the scene where Dresden is trying to cast a spell at a werewolf that is charging at him only to have Murphy jump between him and the werewolf and points a gun at Dresden and tells him to get down on the ground.  She, a supposedly trained detective, doesn’t hear the werewolf?  Nope.  She, a supposedly trained detective, doesn’t think to just take a step or two to the side and shoot the man running at Dresden from behind?  Nope.  Instead, she shoots right at Dresden.

Oh, and then there’s the FBI agent who actually attempts to shoot Murphy while they are both at a crime scene.  The agent, completely unprovoked and breaking about a billion laws, pulls her gun and shoots at an officer of the law.  That agent is certainly going to jail for a long time, right?  Wrong.  Murphy refuses to even file a report because she doesn’t want there to be bad blood between her and the FBI.  Seriously?

There is also this scene where Marcone is tied up and strung up over a pit as bait for a werewolf while Dresden and his crew are stuck in the pit.  Somehow, defying all physics, Marcone is able to pull a knife from his person (even though he was searched) and cut some magical rope that then falls into the pit and allows Dresden and his crew to climb out of the pit.  Someone please explain to me how that is physically possible?

Of course, the worse thing, as in the first book, is every single interaction between the main characters, Harry Dresden and Karrin Murphy.  For example, Harry and Karrin have a conversation about how Karrin is pissed at Harry for hiding things from her in “Stormfront”.  She makes him promise her that he’ll never lie to her or hide anything from her like that again.  THE VERY NEXT THING Harry does is hide things from her.  In fact, he is hiding things from her as he’s promising her to not hide things from her.  Harry Dresden is either a complete asshole or Jim Butcher is a horrible writer.

Then there’s also the whole thing with Murphy using Harry to investigate every paranormal happening and always coming to the conclusion that Harry must be involved somehow.  Every freaking time two books in a row!  You either don’t trust him or you do.  Pick one.

I did give it two stars and not one so now I’ll say something nice about the book.  Much like the first one, all of the magic and werewolves and ideas are legitimately interesting.  It is fun to read about loupe-garou and Hexenwolves and what the differences are.  Jim Butcher would likely have had a fine career writing a Monster Manual.  Unfortunately, he decided to try to tell a story.  Jim Butcher can not tell a story.