Now that his girlfriend has left him, professional wizard Harry Dresden can't pay his rent and alienates his friends. He's soon approached by the Winter Queen of Faerie with an offer he can't refuse--all he has to do is find out who murdered the Summer Queen's right-hand man, the Summer Knight, and clear the Winter Queen's name. Soon, Harry finds out that the fate of the entire world rests on his solving this case.

When the corpse of a brutally mutilated murder victim turns up at the time of the full moon, accompanied by some most unusual paw prints, professional wizard and supernatural investigator Harry Dresden finds himself searching Chicago for the werewolf stalking the city.

Called to Cook County hospital to deal with an enraged ghost, Harry Dresden, Chicago's resident wizard, is puzzled and disturbed not by the ghost's wrath but by the fact that someone had cast a torture spell on it, goading it into action. Harry's disturbance increases when he discovers that the same spell has been cast on one of his friends. Harry begins to realize that he and his friends may be targets of a vengeful spirit, and as he desperately...

Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden is a very powerful wizard and a dedicated private eye. He is also a wise cracking trouble magnet. Fueled by a tempest of guilt, sleep deprivation, malnutrition, bad temper and frankly awful personal grooming. Harry is hurtling toward oblivion. According to Harry that is nobody's business but his own.