Skin Game (Jim Butcher)

I started this series (the Dresden Files) quite a while ago, and dropped out after a few books. Recently I picked up this, the most recent entry, and really enjoyed it. Harry is a wizard operating in modern-day Chicago, along with an assorted cast of other wizards, warlocks, witches, demons, faeries, shape-shifters, angels (Fallen and upright), Knights of the Cross, and on and on. In this book he's drafted by Queen Mab, who runs the Seelie Court in Faerie, to pay off a debt she owes to all-around bad-guy Nicodemus, by helping Nicodemus raid the deepest vault in Hades. Harry is not happy about this, partly because he doesn't want to do anything to benefit someone as evil as Nicodemus, and partly because he assumes that Nicodemus will turn on him and kill him as soon as Harry's part of the job is over. How can he arrange things to fulfill his obligation to Queen Mab while undermining Nicodemus's plans and keeping himself and his friends alive? I was a little disappointed by the rabbit Harry pulled out of his hat toward the end (with a first-person story, you don't expect the narrator to keep secrets like that from the reader for so long), but the breathtaking action of the climax more than made up for it. There's a moment that had me, a Star Wars fan, literally cheering aloud in delight. Now I need to go back and read some of the stories I missed before. This world is a fun place to spend time.