The second book in The Dresden Files, Fool Moon, sees Harry Dresden come up against werewolves, about six months after the events in the first book. And, in the sense of not letting anyone get left out, Jim Butcher includes four different types of werewolves, thus covering all the bases. It’s an impressive bit of world-building, but the writing isn’t quite good enough to sustain it. I find this a better book than Storm Front, but it’s still a writer still learning his trade.

Once again, Butcher structures the story as a mystery: there are murders being committed, the police can’t figure out who is doing it, and Dresden is shortly sure that werewolves are involved. However, with several groups and types of werewolves shortly being apparent around the city, this soon turns out to be a troublesome task.

The problems with this book are, like those with Storm Front, mostly derived from a lack of attention to the characters. The villains tend to come off better here than Dresden’s allies – poor Susan, his girlfriend, has almost no time in which to impress herself on us. Murphy, his occasional policewoman partner and employer, is in the book more, but is mostly there just to advance the plot. Good characterisation will come later in the series, but, for now, it’s rather lacking.

The book does relentlessly throw one thing after the other at Dresden, and so there’s little time for much reflection. It’s a pity that some elements, like the Alphas, a group of teenage werewolves, don’t really get enough attention here. However, the book is still readable, and it’s not far to go before that books actually start getting really good.