The Dresden Files/Turn Coat

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Book #11 in The Dresden Files.

When it comes to the magical ruling body known as the White Council, Harry keeps his nose clean and his head down. For years, the Council has held a death mark over Harry's head. He's still thought of as a black sheep by some; and as a sacrificial lamb by others. But none regard him with more suspicion and disdain than Morgan, a veteran Warden with a grudge against anyone who bends the rules.

Like Harry.

So when Morgan turns up asking for help, Harry isn't exactly eager to leap into action. Morgan has been accused of treason against the White Council, and there's only one final punishment for that crime. He's on the run, he wants his name cleared, and he needs someone with a knack for backing the underdog.

Like Harry.

Now Harry must uncover a traitor within the Council, keep a less than agreeable Morgan under wraps, and avoid coming under scrutiny himself. And a single mistake may cost someone his head.

Like Harry...

---

Tropes associated with Turn Coat:

• Affably Evil: Lara Raith describes herself as an "affable monster." Then she eats her cousin alive. Literally.
• And This Is For: During the final confrontation with the skinwalker, Harry punctuates each spell by yelling the name of a friend or family member that it has hurt, and uses the emotion from that name to fuel his spells.
• Bittersweet Ending
• Book Ends: A subtle one, but the book begins with Harry saying, "I know what it feels like to have the Wardens on your ass for something you haven't done." The book ends with Morgan's dying words being, "I knew that you knew how it felt to be an innocent man hounded by the Wardens."
• Break the Cutie: Thomas. He gets tortured physically, fed a bunch of women and tortured again. By the time Harry sees him again, he is in rotten shape and nearly rapes Molly to death.
• The Butler Did It: The traitor in the White Council was not the Merlin, Ancient Mai, Listens-To-Wind or even Ebenezer. It was the secretary, clerk and all-around paper-pusher -- in other words, the perfect guy to subvert, because he has access to all the information and can just fade into the background.
• Clarke's Third Law: Harry is caught in the rain and is glad that the armor spells he put onto his leather duster also made it stain and waterproof. He also notes that, despite being so tough and powerful, it still breathes and allows a good flow of oxygen, something not even the best coats manufactured by the best technology can accomplish. Afterwards, he smugly thinks about how magic has accomplished something that technology will probably never be able to equal.

Sufficiently advanced, my ass.

• Cold-Blooded Torture: The Thomas abuse. Shagnasty kidnapped him, then proceeded to tear off strips of skin over and over, straining his vampire Healing Factor to its limit. Then he fed him someone and started the whole thing over again. The point was to get him to give up on his attempts at being a Friendly Neighborhood Vampire.
• Cool Car: Lara Raith's Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith leads to a few expressions of pure awe. The power of this car is such that it alone gives Harry hope. As he finds out that his harboring of Morgan has been tipped off to the Wardens, another character points out that this car is far too cool for Harry to die in. Harry agrees.
• Defeat Means Friendship: "I punched it in the nose. Now we're friends."
• Downer Ending: While a downer overall, Harry is determined not to let it stay that way.
• Et Tu, Brute?
• Famed in Story: Harry, especially apparent here.
• Fingore: Shagnasty bites off a few fingers of one of Lara Raith's sisters.
• Genius Loci: Demonreach.
• Get It Over With: Harry pulls this on the skin-walker, shocking it.
• Green-Eyed Monster
• Heroic BSOD: After seeing an Eldritch Abomination Harry crashed his car and was a gibbering wreck for a good hour or so.
• Horror Hunger: Happens to Thomas, which leads to him nearly killing his girlfriend and almost raping Molly to death. Only quick thinking and Harry's protection spell kept her safe.
• I Have Boobs - You Must Obey!: Molly uses this to great effect to get information out of the PI shadowing Harry. Morgan jumps to the conclusion that she's going to use mind-control magic. All Molly has to do is take off her bra and go talk to the guy in his very air-conditioned car. As Harry observes, "He didn't stand a chance."
• Killed to Uphold the Masquerade: Morgan, although in this case the Masquerade was that the White Council is strong and united rather than the supernatural does not exist.
• Lonely Funeral: Morgan's, because even though he had been a hero to the White Council almost all his life, he died framed for political reasons.
• Make the Dog Testify: Helps that Mouse is a sentient magic dog.
• Malicious Slander: What happened to Morgan. Also, what some human accomplices of the Red Court do to Harry approach this, but it's more a matter of half-truths than complete slander.
• Meaningful Funeral: Specifically denied.
• Mexican Standoff
• Mind Control: Peabody is revealed to have made extensive use of this.
• Nuclear Option: Wizard Morgan is known to have once killed a skinwalker (a powerful Native American Eldritch Abomination) by luring it to a location that would shortly be used as A-bomb testing site. Can we say Crowning Moment of Awesome?
• Obstructive Bureaucrat: Wizard Peabody and it turns out he was trying to be.
• Pre-Ass-Kicking One-Liner: Injun Joe Listens-To-Wind gets one on the skinwalker: "Ain't gonna bind or banish ya, old spirit. Just gonna kick your ass up between your ears."
• Pronoun Trouble: This was the phrase Harry was looking for when he was complaining about what to call Shagnasty.
  • Turned into a Brick Joke: during their final battle, Harry yells at it, "Bring it on, you dickless freak!"
• Psychic Nosebleed: Harry after Seeing the skinwalker.
• Rain Dance: Injun Joe does this as a weapon against the shapeshifter in Turn Coat.
• Sand in My Eyes
• Shapeshifter Showdown: Epically.
• Ship Tease: A Harry/Murphy one.
• Speak of the Devil: Do not mention the skinwalker. It will just make it more powerful. Harry compensates by renaming it "Shagnasty."
• Take That: Binder has one against poor, tortured, sentimental vampires.
• Ten Little Murder Victims: The traitor(s) in the White Council has been a problem for a long time; in this novel, Harry has to find them on a very strict time limit indeed.
• To Absent Friends: The end, since they are not allowed a Meaningful Funeral.
• Training from Hell: Harry learns that Morgan's teacher (Luccio) used rocks in an exercise where Justin had used baseballs and Harry had used snowballs.
• You Called Me "X" - It Must Be Serious: Harry calls Captain Luccio "Stacy", a diminutive of "Anastasia" he knows she hates, just to make sure she is not an impostor.
• You Cannot Grasp the True Form: The Naagloshii is a shape shifter, so it's mundane form is never fixed. However, when Harry looks at it using his wizard sight the overwhelming wrongness effectively blasts his mind and renders him senseless.