© James Pyles

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Jim Butcher’s Death Masks, the fifth in his “The Dresden Files” series is the darkest and most intense story yet.

The Shroud of Turin is missing and a Catholic Priest from Rome hires wizard/investigator Harry Dresden to find it, believing the Shroud is now somewhere in Chicago. At the same time, the feud between the wizard’s White Council and the vampire’s Red Court has taken a strange turn. To resolve the “cold war” between them, a vampire lord and expert duelist Ortega challenges Harry to a duel to the death. Harry can’t refuse because if he does, vampire and mortal assassins will target and kill everyone Harry cares about.

While mortal thieves originally took the Shroud, supernatural forces known as “The Fallen,” mortals possessed by demons, are after it for their own purposes. This brings in the Knights of the Cross, lead by Michael Carpenter who we saw in a previous novel. He is accompanied by Shiro and Sanya who are more adept at fighting the Fallen than Harry ever could be.

As in interesting aside, only Michael is a Christian. Sanya is an atheist (yeah, I had a tough time with that one, too) and Shiro is areligious. Yet they all have reasons for fighting against ultimate evil.

On top of all of that, Harry’s almost-vampire girlfriend (ex-girlfriend) Susan comes back into town with a companion and both of them now belong to a mysterious organization that battles vampires.

Confused? It’s a lot to keep track of. Fortunately, Butcher is more than skilled enough to weave all the threads of this tapestry into a cohesive and comprehensible story.

As usual, Harry almost gets himself killed on a number of occasions. However this time, he reaches into the darkest corners of his soul in order to recover the shroud from a demon disguised as a client. He literally tortures him by beating to get the information he wants. That’s really dark, even for Harry.

Although the Knights officially disapprove, they seem to take what Harry did in stride, even straight-laced Michael, which I didn’t expect (seemed out of character for him).

Detective Murphy makes an appearance and while she is key to certain events, I would have liked to see her take a bigger role now that Harry has clued her in on most of the details of his life and his battles.

I expected the death duel with Ortega to be the climax of the book. After all, Harry wasn’t expected to win and he didn’t. But while the battle was exciting and the conclusion unanticipated, it was the battle with the demon Nicodemus for the Shroud that was the pulse-pounding conclusion.

I won’t spoil the details for you (even thought the novel has been around for over twenty years), but as with the previous stories, while the immediate threats are resolved, there’s a great deal of foreshadowing for future events (the series has seventeen novels and counting).

Book by book, “The Dresden Files” series keeps getting better and better. I absolutely cannot fault this novel or series. I’ve already checked out the next book Blood Rites from the library and can’t wait to tear into it.