Fool Moon: A Fun Werewolf Hunt Worth Looking Into

Okay, I read a couple really serious thrillers in the last month so I decided to take a break from a the really heavy dead serious material for something a little more fun. So I decided to dive back into the Dresden Files. And here I continued the series with Jim Butcher’s second book in the paranormal investigation series Fool Moon.

So what is it about? Well the concept of the whole Dresden Files book series, is a wizard who helps the police department with supernatural murders. And in Fool Moon, well you know what? Just guess? Paranormal spooky stuff like this only leads to werewolves. A little cliché for the genre, but that’s the story. A werewolf is slaughtering people around Chicago and the police department hires Harry Dresden to help out. Only problem is, things don’t quite fit together like they should and the FBI, is being controlled by a arrogant man named Denton who is trying to take the case away from the police and "accidentally" road blocking them with every clue they find.

So the good here? Though clichés (well for new readers maybe not, but I’ve read a lot of Anita Blake before this) Jim Butcher tries to change it up. Instead of just a werewolf in the mythology. There are four different kinds of werewolves. Not like breeds. But they different monsters all together abiding by different rules. It may be a bit baffling at first but with the things the author does with this concept, make you appreciate it by the end. He tried his hardest to make it, it’s own thing. Also, there are some really fun action scenes as well as one scene that becomes so incredibly gruesome, that it showed Butcher could take a nose dive into pure horror if he wanted to. So there’s some real memorable moments.

The bad? Given this book, when all said is done, for the most part is a werewolf hunt. So if you read something like this before, you’ll most likely be reading a lot of the same stuff. Also given the predictable nature of story, I was able to guess the bad guy just a couple pages after he was introduced. To a reader new to a fantasy horror genre might not guess it, but if read books similar to these or watched movies like this or even TV shows like Fringe, Supernatural, and X Files you’ll see the cardboard cut out stereotype immediately. And then one last thing, halfway through the book Butcher pulled a really cheap move. When things have turned for the worse and Dresden is knocked out. In the dream Dresden is talked down to and told what to do by they conscience that is another version of himself. It felt awkward and seemed more like a case of the author writing himself into a corner and taking a get out of jail free card. It just didn’t fit and felt cheap. Beyond that there are still corny one liners. But I learned by this point, that’s a staple of the series and I don’t think its going away.

Overall, it’s a fair book. If you’re a paranormal crime novels veteran, its pretty mediocre. In no way does it live up to the absolutely crazy roller coaster ride of the first one, but its not worth skipping. I recommend it to fans of the series and newbie of the dark fantasy novels. But if you’re a veteran in this stuff, the book might seem a little tame.

Overall Rating 2 ½ smoothies out of four.