The Dresden Files/Ghost Story

Book #13 in The Dresden Files.

When we last left the mighty wizard detective Harry Dresden, he wasn't doing well. In fact, he had been murdered by an unknown assassin.

But being dead doesn't stop him when his friends are in danger. Except now he has nobody, and no magic to help him. And there are also several dark spirits roaming the Chicago shadows who owe Harry some payback of their own.

To save his friends -- and his own soul -- Harry will have to pull off the ultimate trick without any magic...

Tropes associated with Ghost Story:
"Harry: "Fire burns.""
 * Abnormal Ammo: Sir Stuart uses a large gun to blast a wraith to oblivion. Harry finds out that, much like everything else  can do, it is powered by memory. Stuart makes a great effort to recover that energy each time it is used.
 * All Love Is Unrequited: Harry finally realises that  feelings for him go beyond a mere crush. He also feels sorry that he cannot reciprocate them.
 * : Ironically, one of the twists of Ghost Story. Maybe.
 * Back From the Dead:
 * Badass Normal: Daniel Carpenter takes after both of his parents in the badass department, knife fighting with a supernaturally fast warlock.
 * Battle in The Center of The Mind:
 * Beard of Sorrow:
 * Big Damn Heroes:  are this for.
 * Bittersweet Ending
 * Break the Cutie:
 * Broken Bird: Molly.
 * Cast From Hit Points: It is revealed that just about every ability a ghost can have (other than simply existing and traveling) is fueled by memory. Ghosts are composed of the memories of the person they were before. Use up all the memories and it is bye-bye.
 * Cold-Blooded Torture:
 * Creepy Child: Inez, the spirit of a little girl in the Graceland cemetery who Harry meets. She is generally friendlier and more polite than most versions of creepy kids, but she is still unsettling, not the least because she died a couple of centuries ago and has an extensive amount of knowledge about spirits and shades, and is convinced by long experience that Harry will become "a monster."
 * Also the ghost children who love to "play" with living children down by the river.
 * Cryptic Conversation: Every spirit in Ghost Story pretty much can only communicate this way. At one point Harry runs into an entity named Eternal Silence, who attempts to explain things to Harry in a straightforward manner. Doing so results in  so there is some pretty good reasons for this.
 * Deader Than Dead: The  after Harry allows her personal supply of wraiths to assault and consume her. Harry reports that the last sound he hears of her is replaced by the sound of a southbound train.
 * Dead Person Conversation: Inverted: Harry is the dead person in question.
 * Dead to Begin With: The whole premise.
 * Deconstruction: This book deconstructs Harry's genocide of the Red Court in the previous book. They were a major political and financial power, and now that they've suddenly disappeared, there is a vacuum ready to be filled by new enemies.
 * Molly confirms this when talking to
 * Dumb Muscle: While certainly Badass during his fight with Aristedes the sorcerer, Daniel Carpenter displays shades of this during his first appearance in Ghost Story,
 * Don't Fear the Reaper: Dresden meets an Angel of Death . She's pleasant enough and is there to act as a soul's bodyguard on its final journey. She's even nice enough to ignore Dresden's various threats since, Dresden being Dresden and all, he doesn't realize until halfway through the conversation that she could utterly destroy him with a passing thought.
 * Disney Death:
 * Enemy Without:.
 * Fun With Acronyms: In Ghost Story Harry's friends have formed the Better Future Society it could have been a coincidence but then Butters mentions that he wanted to name it the Better Future Group for the sake of the Acronym
 * Genre Blindness: Played with in Ghost Story.
 * Ghostapo:
 * Girl-On-Girl Is Hot:
 * Guilt Complex: Harry also spends Ghost Story feeling guilty about the mess he's made of the whole world, and particularly the lives of his friends and loved ones, by exterminating the Red Court (which he's not exactly wrong to feel guilty about). He feels particularly guilty about Molly, for not training her well enough to survive on her own, for setting a bad example by crossing the line when he
 * He's Just Hiding:
 * To be fair,
 * Heel Realization: Midway through the novel, Harry comes to this realization when he considers the consequences of his actions in Changes and the extent which he went to in order to stop his enemies and save those he loved - and that in doing so, he became what he fought.
 * Heroic BSOD: In Ghost Story, it is obvious that.
 * Heroic Fatigue: Played with in Ghost Story:
 * Idiot Ball: Harry realizes he was holding it during a specific event near the end of Changes:
 * Impostor Exposing Test: Murphy has Mort cut himself in Ghost Story before inviting him inside. A lot of supernatural beings that require an invitation to enter a building will bleed ectoplasmic goo rather than blood. Harry notes that this method is far from foolproof.
 * Earlier in the series, she pulls one on Harry. After being mindraped by a ghost taking Dresden's form in a previous book, when he shows up at her house unannounced, she forces him to walk through her threshold uninvited, which would have revealed if any illusion was being used.
 * The Internet Is for Porn: In Ghost Story, Bob now has access to the internet. He declares, almost giddy, "It's like ninety-percent porn!"
 * Ironic Echo: One notable example, showing just how bad things have gotten. When we first see Harry trying to teach Molly about shielding spells, it's with her younger brothers and sisters throwing snowballs at her. Her shield fails, she's pelted with snow, and it's a hilarious and heartwarming moment. Cut to Ghost Story, and she's again practicing shields. Only this time, it's
 * The Kid With the Leash: Butters winds up holding Bob's leash by the end, and bob is happy to serve as his combination magical tutor and genie-in-a-skull.
 * Kill It With Fire: In Ghost Story, Harry points out that the reason he uses fire is because it is universally useful. Even intangibles like ghosts recoil from fire as they have a hard time separating their memory of fire and flame from their current existence. Harry also points out that even though something might be invulnerable to death from burning, they almost always still feel pain from it and can be stalled with it.
 * Kill It With Fire: In Ghost Story, Harry points out that the reason he uses fire is because it is universally useful. Even intangibles like ghosts recoil from fire as they have a hard time separating their memory of fire and flame from their current existence. Harry also points out that even though something might be invulnerable to death from burning, they almost always still feel pain from it and can be stalled with it.

"Said Jim (paraphrased): “It came down to, readers could either get a half-assed story in April, or a full-assed one in July!”"
 * Late Arrival Spoiler: Present in some of the later books, but Ghost Story takes this to new heights: it is impossible to discuss its plot without giving away the last few pages of Changes.
 * Must Make Amends: Harry Dresden to an extent when he realises the effects of his actions. Easier said than done since.
 * My God, What Have I Done?: Much of Ghost Story consists of this sort of realization regarding his Roaring Rampage of Revenge in Changes.
 * Nervous Wreck: Molly Carpenter becomes one in Ghost Story, following.
 * Nothing Is the Same Anymore: By the end of the Changes/Ghost Story arc, you would be hard pressed to find anything about Harry's day-to-day life that has not irrevocably, well, changed.
 * Not Quite Dead:
 * Oh Crap: In the first couple chapters of Ghost Story, Harry has a moment where he realizes that,
 * In the last chapter, Harry does it again when
 * Pound of Flesh Twist: Harry ultimately realizes that, although he IS the Winter Knight, Mab still doesn't have any ACTUAL power over him, allowing him to retain his free will and enabling him to determine HOW or even IF he follows Mab's orders.
 * Schedule Slip: Ghost Story was originally scheduled for release in April 2011, before being delayed until July 2011.

"Willie let out a high-pitched scream as we narrowly avoided being smashed by a truck.
 * Shut UP, Hannibal: There are two significant instances of this: first,, and second,.
 * Spot the Thread: In Ghost Story, to sneak into the den of a sorcerer and rescue his band of thieving street urchins,
 * Spring Is Late: Chicago sees regular snowfall well into May
 * Stealth Pun: Flickum Bicus is actually kinda subtle unless you regularly flick your bic. Ghost Story outright explains this one, though:
 * Suspiciously Specific Denial: "Grenades!" I ordered, in a firm and manly tone that did not sound at all like a panicked fourteen-year-old.

Seriously. It was her. Nobody can prove otherwise."


 * Take Up My Sword: A straight example occurs in Ghost Story, when the gravely-wounded  throws Harry his gun. Harry initially thinks he's been given a powerful one-use weapon, but later figures out that it is actually
 * Talking in Your Sleep: An interesting version in Ghost Story:  It's never explicitly stated how this happens, and Harry naturally finds the constant interruption annoying.
 * Teleport Spam: Ghosts who know how to "vanish" (which is essentially ghostly teleportation) use this when they fight. Harry and  have a magical duel while teleporting around a cavern, including teleporting inside solid structures like walls to duke it out.
 * Terror Hero: Molly becomes a Type 4 deliberately to try to impose order in the city.
 * Thirteen Is Unlucky: This is the thirteenth book in the series, and Harry is dead..
 * Training From Hell: How Lea trains  after  . She even calls a pack of mid-level Fomor mooks against an exhausted and mal-nourished   and expects her to handle it. Then, when  predictably intervenes, she reveals that she used that particular sequence to train them BOTH at the same time. The Fae are NOT to be taken lightly.
 * After this episode,  begrudgingly admits that she might have a point and that, by going relatively easy, he might not have done the best job of preparing   for just what kinds of trauma and hardship she'll naturally be exposed to as a wizard, especially.
 * Unfinished Business: Ghost Story.
 * Unreliable Narrator: Happens once again, when it turns out that
 * We Can Rule Together:
 * Wham! Line:
 * Who Dunnit to Me?:
 * You Can See Me?: It comes as a surprise to that Butters and Lea can see him. He's also surprised when he comes across someone else who can hear him.