I said this a few years back, but since it's been a while, I'll rehash it.

My prediction/hope was that the Talks would be held in a hotel in Chicago (maybe the one from Skin Game, maybe the Rothchild from Summer Knight).  Harry would be there as the Winter Knight (escorting the Winter Lady).  It would be hosted by Marcone, with the hotel closed off to the general public, and a bunch of wards protecting the place.

It'd start with the attendees being introduced, and one of the reveals would be the Eebs arriving with a small retinue of Ramps (either as the inheritors of the Red Court, or as Fomor members).

Things would really snap off when one of the Eebs ended up dead, which would trigger wards that would lock down the hotel, preventing anyone from coming or going.  A bunch of powerful beings would be trapped together, none of them trusting each other, and believing the others are trying something.

Harry will be accused of the murder (something on the nose, like the Eeb being found frozen and shattered, a known method of execution for Harry now) and he'll have to solve the murder to clear his name, find the real killer, uncover the plot, and release the wards.

The sealed-off hotel would allow for that Shining-feel of isolated desperation. 

And of course, despite Harry's efforts, the Talks will be a disaster, people and things will die, the war will continue, and everyone will blame him.

I don't know about the entire scenario you've constructed.  For example, I suppose the Eebs making a return could happen, but I'm not jumping on that train just yet.  Though I do like the idea that if the Eebs did return they would now be members of the Fomor.  That is a really cool idea because it would drive Harry absolutely nuts.

However, your basic premise of a murder mystery for Harry to unravel because his ass is on the line and seeing himself and everyone else trapped together is solid.  The only problems I have with it are minor.  I think Molly is going to have to come out to her parents or have them find out on their own about her new job and what it could potentially mean.  So I don't see that happening in a locked down environment.  Also, if someone like Cowl or Mavra shows up to make trouble it's much easier and safer to do that if the talks take place at a certain set time and at the end of each session the parties fall back to safe locations to plan for the next round.

However, I know there are workarounds to both the issues I mentioned.  Molly's issue could come to the fore near the beginning of the story before everyone gets locked down, or near the end of the story and Cowl or Mavra could end up getting locked in with everyone else.

I just had a thought about the location.  In Ghosts Story; I believe Harry was looking for Molly, and he ended up at the location where Splattercon was held, but it was now out of business.  I could see Marrcone buying this property and renovating it.  It's better than just a hotel or stand alone convention center because meetings could be held in the convention center and the members to the talks could retreat to their own rooms and likely their own floors at the end of each session of talks. 

There has been a trend of the Dresden Files novels getting longer, though Skin Game had a lower word count than Cold Days.  Also, if you compare the Cinder Spires book with the first book of the Alera series; well, there is no comparison.  "The Aeronaut's Windless"  a much longer and more involved story.  Now we know Jim has had various life issues which have contributed to Peace Talks taking so long to get done, but does anyone else think (because I do) that Peace Talks is going to be a more complex story (or have more stories to tell within it) than what we usually get from a Dresden Files novel?  I mean Skin Game had a pretty basic story idea; a heist story where Harry was forced to work with Nicodemus and both of them would try to double-cross one another.  There were of course unexpected complications, but I'm just talking about the main plot of the novel.  Many of the early novels had easily identifiable A and a B plots.  For example, in "Blood Rites" Harry is trying to stop an unknown foe who is using an entropy curse to kill people on a porn movie set and at the same time he's organizing a strike team to find and kill Mavra.  These A and B plots are often related to each other in ways that Harry didn't understand, but again, I'm just talking about the basic plot structure, not how various elements might be blended into the overall story arc. 

I'm thinking that in Peace Talks, Jim has more balls to juggle than in perhaps any other Dresden Files book before it.  If you've read the preview first chapter you know that So if you didn't read the spoiler there are two issues that Harry will be involved with in some manner.  However, that leaves many other potential complications that in themselves may become their own, let's call them C and D plots.  Not to mention that the first issue in the spoiler is a rather open-ended one.  It's not a straightforward idea like, I want you work with Nicodemus and “I expect you to skin them alive” or "They've taken our daughter."  We can only guess where this story element may go and there is really nothing in the earlier novels that might give us more than a tiny hint of how this could play out.

Jim has said that Changes, Ghost Story and Cold Days could be described as an internal trilogy within the series, that turns it in a new direction.  I would argue that Skin Game should be added to this list and call it a quadrilogy within the overall story arc, because SG settles the issue of the "parasite" inside Harry's head we learned about in Ghost Story and it demonstrated that Harry; though at times with some difficulty, was learning to control the Winter Knight's mantel.  So we had Harry's life deconstructed in Changes and it has taken until the end of Skin Game to see that a new life is now possible for him.  So now that Jim has fully turned the ship around that means Harry will face more complicated situations to untangle and I think they begin in Peace Talks.

Just to give one example, we don't know what the future holds for the White Council and its most prominent members.  In Changes it almost seemed like a civil war was possible or that a coup was about to take place.  I suspect Jim was setting up serious complications and likely endings for one or more characters on the Council.  I won't be surprised if we see one or more of those complications or endings happen in Peace Talks.  That is just one possible avenue Jim might explore.  Think about all the other possible complications that might arise, and even if only one or two come to a boil, you've got a bigger and hopefully engaging novel for us to (eventually) read, and one that takes some effort to tie together.  All that said, I'm hoping that really soon we will read that Jim has finished or as he has often done in the past, he announces that only the denouement is left to write.   

PS: If you would like to make a guess at likely complications or plot twists we might encounter, feel free to do so.  I think it's about time we start compiling a prediction list and later see who came closest to the mark.       

I never read this series.  I'll have to give it a listen.  I'm getting a little tired of the Iron Druid series.  I just started the sixth book and it feels a little meh to me.  The next Alex Verus book doesn't come out until July and I don't know when the next Rivers of London novel will come out.  Any other suggestions? 

Too bad there isn't something in the text about Mab: and now that I think about it Titania, being shorter than the average fae, because then I think you might have something.  However, that might not be a real clue either because I believe Mab can be any height she wants to be.  I do remember that Lea is taller than Mab, though I can't remember what book I read that in. 

If Mab = anyone else, I have to go with Ms. Duck's theory of Mab = Molly, though I don't really buy that one either. 

Wel you can look up the length of each book put them in a graph and extrapolate. You will probably find they are getting longer.

Yea; and I don't see any reason why that might change in Peace Talks.  Look at all the characters and potential plot and subplot threads we can expect to see in Peace Talks:

Harry and the White Council.
I'm not just talking about Harry's status within the Council and how much he's distrusted by some members of the Senior Council.  There is also the question of the Council itself.  Is it politically fractured or have the Merlin and Cristos come to some kind of (probably temporary) understanding?  Will LTW meet with Harry and begin teaching him to control his anger as Eb suggested some time ago?

Thomas, Justine and baby make three are what we know about.  What we don't know is how this effects Thomas and Lara's relationship.  We also should get a clearer picture of what moves Lara has been making.  Plus, some think Lord Raith might start making a comeback or be put down for good.  I'm in the later camp, but if anything happens involving LR that will complicate things.

Then there are the Fomor themselves.  The Peace Talks are supposed to be about them and their place in the supernatural world.  I expect the guy (Lord something or other) Harry threatened in Skin Game to be on hand.  Maybe even the Fomor leader (King Korb?) will make an appearance.

What other complication? 
Oh yea; Molly, her new job career, and her parents reaction when they find out.
A teenage Archive and all that may imply as the talk's arbiter.  Plus her bodyguard. 
Marcone acting as host.  No, Gentleman John won't be involved at all.  Sure.
Someone unexpected is bound to show up even if they try to remain hidden.  Cowl, Mavra, Cat Sith (I don't think so - too soon.), plus we could meet a new major character like Drakul.   

I'm sure I've missed other potential plot threads and twists.  (Feel free to name them or to make a guess as to what they will be.)  So there's no reason to think PT will be a shorter read than Cold Days and I'm fine with that.  To my way of thinking this book should be a major turning point in the series.  It should lay the ground work that leads us up to the BAT.

What we have heard is what we gotta go with. Life and situations sometimes get in the way of both work and art.

Agreed.

On a different point, I recall reading on this forum that after Jim finished Peace Talks he would jump right into Mirror Mirror.  However, on rewatching the Q&A Jim did at the last Con he did this year, Jim said he would be getting back to the next book in Cinder Spires series.  Does anyone here know if the idea that Jim would continue with the next Dresden book was just wishful thinking on someone's part or did Jim originally say he would do this but has since changed his mind?

We could be if you are also ruggedly-good-looking, intelligent, and witty while being humble and kind to animals. LOL

Well, if Cozarkian fits that profile we must be identical triplets because you just described me.  Though I don't like to brag; you know, the whole humility thing, I can't deny who I am.   

To get back to the OP, we might think of some relatively new questions, but such issues will probably not have much meat on the bone.  In other words, they will probably be issues or ideas which have very little written in the books to go on.

For example, I've thought about Harry at the beginning of Skin Game, where he states that he has been thinking about his life, but what I mostly got out of that soliloquy was that Harry wondered who he could trust.  I imagine that was partly due to Nemesis; Harry can't risk openly discussing it with any of his friends, and partly due to neither Mab nor Molly answering his calls, but we later learn that Harry also felt he wasn't being visited very often by his friends. 

However, I would really like to know if Harry thought about anything else besides that.  I mean he had an entire year on the island.  He couldn't have spent the entire time learning how the island functioned and doing Parkour.  To get more specific, at the end of Cold Days Mab told Harry that the athame Lea received from Bianca was tainted and the infection spread from Lea to Meave.  In Ghost Story Lea told Harry's shade the reason she went gonzo on the Red Court was she owed them payback for the treacherous gift (meaning the athame) Bianca gave her.  Has Harry thought about this at all?  He knows or should remember that there were two powerful wizards (necromancers specifically) who were pretending to be Bianca's flunkies, dutifully retrieving and presenting Bianca's gifts.  Cowl and Kumori didn't contest this observation when Harry told them he recognized them from Bianca's party.  Cowl even played some one-upmanship on Harry by telling him that many things of consequence happened at that party that Harry wasn't aware of.

So we know Harry couldn't do any investigating while he was stuck on Demonreach, so there wasn't anything he could do concretely, but I hope in a future book this comes up, and hopefully it doesn't hit Harry out of the blue.  He's smart enough to have put the pieces together.  He should even be wondering how much his knowledge is worth.  I mean Lea would certainly be interested that other people besides Bianca were involved in giving her the tainted athame, and Harry knows that at least one of them (Cowl) is still alive.  Perhaps Mab would like some payback as well against a wizard or wizards who were instrumental in Maeves nemfection.  Without their specific identities Harry might not have enough information to make a deal, but he's an investigator, it's kind-of what he does.  So Harry should have thought about this topic and perhaps others while he was stuck on Demonreach Island. 

So we can talk about this and other things Harry might have mulled over, but I'm not sure there will be much textural evidence to backup any ideas we might come up with.