That assassination at the end - terrible. Naturally, the first person I suspected as the shooter was Kincaid. It was the exact method he'd said he'd employ. No idea why he'd do it. Assumed it was because Ivy had told him to do it because Dresden had become the Winter Knight. But in the first place, as the author: why kill Dresden?
I had a certain disadvantage as a delayed reader. I sit here looking at the final page, having just been so pleased that Harry was finally about to scratch the Karrin itch, and knowing that I have in my possession two novels that occur afterward (as far as I know) and that at least one more is being written. So, I know he doesn't stay dead - so I'm not shocked at the "death" as much as I am with the idea. Maybe it was different for readers before, when there were no existing sequels. I would doubt it, though. It didn't seem final, even within the story.
I had made the mistake of taking Changes with me on my annual Thanksgiving excursion to the middle of nowhere. I didn't take a backup/followup book because I figured I'd be lucky to find time to read, but as it turned out, it rained one of the days, so I finished the book aggressively and was beside myself the rest of the trip, trying to figure out why the hell Butcher had made such a decision.
Soon as I returned home, I went straight to the book shelf and yanked Ghost Story, honestly - not wanting to know anything from that book other than WHY!?
I hate to say this... but I don't give a rat's what happened in Ghost Story before page 438. It was such a laborious read, with malicious abuse of Dresden's friends and in particular his wonderful apprentice, right down to that horrid offense, the nickname "Molls." (I swear, if he keeps calling her that, I'm just going to read along with a black marker, to change all those Ss back to Ys.)
It is as if every momentous achievement in Changes was met with a flop or a dead horse in Ghost Story. Butcher had made the error of "killing" his main, just to see what would happen, and he didn't actually KNOW what would happen. He started typing and hoped for the best, I guess? So many times in that book, he repeats himself. So many times, he includes pointless pages of meaningless action. I literally skimmed large sections of narrative, and skipped past wasted ink, such as that Star Trek bridge of Molly's Mind - in fact, I could barely stand to read much of any of that Corpsetaker fight, because it was just bullshit in the way of the explanation for why someone shot Dresden.
It's even admitted by Butcher as Uriel "reveals all" that the whole story was bogus nonsense.
Why does this book exist!?
It would have been MUCH MORE INTERESTING - MMMMUCH - to have Harry actually LIVE THROUGH that "six months" (I'll skip discussion of that timeline and just go with the flow - sure, yes, the whole world went apeshit in six months, a great stone fortress was built and became a lived-in center of activity in six months, blah blah blah) of power vacuum and deal with it as the (rebellious) Winter Knight. Molly's magic could still have been developed by Lea and her own conflicts while Harry was dealing with Knightly duties. And that would have been a much more Dresden-like solution than the ridiculous plan to have himself killed. Who thinks Dresden needs to be TOLD by Uriel that he can't be owned by Mab? Yet more repetition. That was already realized, BY DRESDEN, in Changes.
UGH! Probably obviously, I just finished reading Ghost Story mere moments before I decided to log on to Paranet and bitch about it... I'd say I felt jerked off, but there was no reward at the end. Butcher just wasted my time.