When a local horror film convention is attacked by phobophages, creatures who feed on fear, Harry must help defeat the creature and discover who is responsible for their appearance. Unfortunately, his search for clues cleads him to his best friend's daughter or her boyfriend. When she is taken into the Nevernever and Harry follows to save her, with her mother, his brother, and Murphy at his side, he also discovers that the fairy Queens are manipulating the situation and that the White Council itself is at risk. By the time he's done, he's saved more than one life, but his standing with the Council is even more precarious, he's aware that there is an unknown traitor on the Council itself, and there's at least one new player on the scene whose identity is unknown.
Impression: Butcher wastes no time getting right into it in Proven Guilty. Dresden is knee-deep in the kimshe before the phobophages show up, and their attacks on the convention only dig him in deeper. The story kept me engaged though -- often past my bedtime. There's some real nice character advancement in here, in their relationships as well as for the individual characters. It was really nice to see Charity finally make some kind of peace with Harry, and seeing Michael at the end, however briefly, was very cool. Butcher nicely ties up the current story, but leaves some intriguing loose ends for a future novel or two. The enemies Harry must stand against aren't necessarily more powerful than in previous books, so there's no continuation of this building of Harry's power we've seen in previous books, but neither are they easily defeated. I think perhaps the only "problem" I had was that I knew who was bringing the phages long before Harry did -- it was just too obvious. Still it didn't ruin the readability and enjoyment of the book. Probably not one of my favorites in the series, but pretty close.
