My theory: It definitely *was* Thomas. Some combination of Mab, Lara, and Marcone are involved. When Lara and Mab appear in the back of Harry's car, Mab informs Harry that Lara had earned THREE favors. One of them is already paid. (Thomas' attack and/or allowing Thomas to be framed for the attack). That leaves TWO favors for Harry to fulfill. (Which both Lara and Mab now will result in Thomas being rescued). I think (as others do) that Marcone *had* to be involved because the transfer to the BFS basement (which happens to be Harry's old lab) is too much of a coincidence.
My joking aside, I agree with what you've said here. I forgot about Marcone, but if only from the trailer, we know that the crime boss and Mab are still working together. However, it's difficult for me to figure out exactly how Lara benefits from all this. She puts herself and Thomas at considerable risk to pull off this stunt, so the potential payoff should be commensurately large to justify the risk. Whatever Lara may get out of this, I'm guessing Harry won't like it.
Ultimately, it may be this whole thing was done for Thomas' own good.
Someone said (I don't remember if it was in this thread.) this is Thomas' redemption arc. If Thomas is ever going to carry the Sword of Faith, feeling all the pain he has caused and being forced to contemplate his past actions will be the thing that helps to truly redeem him. Anyway, it make sense to me.
If Butcher's version of the Hounds of Tindalos are also attracted to time travel, that opens up a whole different can of worms as to why they were outside Justine's building.
Wait, what? Did I skip a page in the book or is this from a short story? Oh, you mean the corner hounds. Never mind. Now that think about it, whose been time traveling? That's who the Hounds of Tindalos would be after. Never mind again. I see what you mean by a can of worms.
I just had an odd thought. I've can recall discussions on this forum (the original forum really) from several years ago about the possibility of Harry having to time travel back to events of Proven Guilty; not to change the past, to prevent someone else; who went back first, from changing the past. I think the general idea was Cowl or some other known enemy of Harry would be the person Harry would be chasing. Maybe Ebenezer McCoy is the person Harry will have to chase. I guess that's a WAG for another novel.
Not to mention ectoplasmic sneezes that wasted a few paragraphs...
That did seem lame, didn't it?
However why that is was never gotten across...
Yeah, I saw that pattern as well, I see it more like there is this three hundred and forty page pudding stirring in a pot. One or more of the ingredients is off, either the amount put in or somehow you miss took baking soda for corn starch, so no matter how hard you stir it will never thicken or taste right.
I think this points to the weakness of splitting the story into two books. If we had the whole thing; we (hopefully) would be impressed how Jim misdirected us in the early going only to later cleverly reveal what actually happened and why. As we stand now, after finishing Peace Talks, I have a very similar feeling to the one I got after seeing the second Matrix movie. If you don't remember; and I wouldn't blame you for forgetting because it was such a letdown of a movie, that movie ended on a not very interesting cliffhanger, with the personality of Agent Smith stuck inside someone's (I don't even remember which character) comatose mind; and you knew he was going to do bad things when he woke up. I remember the general feeling was, "Really, you're going to make us wait until the third movie to see how this plays out?"
We only have to wait a little more than two months, but it's like watching a magician performing half of a trick and then stopping. So there's no satisfying payoff and we are given a lot of time; way more than we need or want, to dissect and comment on the misdirection. If Jim did succeed in tying up everything nicely in Battle Ground, by the time we get to it, we may have run down what we have already read to the point that we won't appreciate it as much as would have in a straight forward read through.