I'm like enough with the interviews, let's get a new book out first.

Yea, I know what you mean.  Jim was at another Con in Seattle this weekend and unless he did something he hasn't done in maybe five or six years; read the first three or four chapters to a con audience, I'm not interested in watching any panels he did.  Fortunately, Jim doesn't have any other personal appearances listed on his schedule until the last weekend of April.  Hopefully we'll have some good news by then.  (Fingers crossed, throwing salt over my shoulder, not stepping on any cracks or breaking any mirrors.)

This has been a burning question for me as well. We haven't checked in with any wizards at all since the end of Changes (not counting Molly), and haven't seen Elaine for a few books, so I'm hoping she'll drop in for Peace Talks as a representative of the Paranet. Maybe as kind of a witness, someone to speak for the Paranetters who've been taken by the Fomor? Hell, maybe Peace Talks could start the process of the Paranet becoming a signatory of its own.

Agreed. I want more Malcolm. Or at least more about Malcolm.

Could be a book about Harry and Murphy both finding out about their fathers, and what killed them. It doesn't have to be the same thing for both (in fact, I think that'd be a little TOO far), but both of them discovering things about their past would be cool.

I've been thinking along similar lines myself.  At one time; before we knew anything about Peace Talks beyond the title, I thought we might see Elaine telling Harry that he needs to find away to make certain the talks don't succeed, or perhaps taking actions to throw the talks into chaos herself.  I doubt most members of the paranet will be happy about the idea of the White Council making peace with the Fomor.  Especially a peace which would allow the Fomor to continue abducting low level magic users. 

I like the idea of Harry and Murphy finding out what really happened to their father's in the same book.  Even though I doubt they would be directly related to one another, the answers to both mysteries might provide each other both contrast and added depth.

4) Harry is supposed to get trained in shapeshifting

Is he?  I thought LTW offered to train Harry how to handle anger issues.  Maybe he'll get some training in shape shifting as well, but I don't think there's any guarantee that will happen.

Plus I'd add a couple of personal issues.

What has happened to Elaine in Harry's absence?  I would assume she took greater control of the paranet but she was already running things on her side of the country before Harry's untimely, if not permanent, demise.  She was definitely hiding something from him in White Night, so that would be a second question: What was Elaine hiding from Harry?  (Reread the scene where Elaine gave Harry a massage after he fell through the ice if you don't know what I'm referring to.)

The second personal issue goes back to before the series started. 

How did Harry's father die?  To put it more bluntly and to the point, who killed Malcolm Dresden and why; and does anyone else know what really happened and has withheld this information from Harry?  I could see Lea, Mab, Ebenezer, and maybe some of the other Senior Council members knowing the truth even if they were not responsible for the crime.  One or more might have even known it would happen beforehand and decided it was for the best to let Malcolm die.  There's a reason this issue has been with us since book 2 when it was introduced by Chaunzaggoroth.  I think the repercussions when Harry eventually faces this issue and learns the truth will be enormous.   

OK, so some of us have chosen Harry as the most likely suspect to have fixed Little Chicago.  (I was never a big fan of this hypothesis until recently.) Of course I mean an older Harry who time travelled back to the past to do so.  Therefore it was TT Harry who hit and ran his younger self at the beginning of Proven Guilty in order to get his younger self out of the way for a while.  Before I continue I want to refer to best evidence that this hypothesis is the correct one.  From a conversation between Bob and Harry near the end of Proven Guilty about LC:

Bob - "No it isn't," Bob said. "Just really, really, really, really, really, really difficult. And unlikely. He would have had to know that you had a lab down here. And he would have had to know how to get around your wards."

Harry - "Plus intimate knowledge of the design to tinker with it like that," I said. "To say nothing of the fact that he would have to know it existed at all, and no one does."

Well, Thomas may have known, but his ability to do magic and understanding the nuts and bolts of how it works is limited.  So Bob may have been hinting it was a man who fixed Little Chicago and Harry's response strongly suggests he was the only man who fulfilled the requirements needed to do the job.

So if you accept that TT Harry fixed LC, that is all well and good, but what else did he do?  I mean you don't think an older Harry went through all the trouble it must have taken to travel back in time, and break one of the Laws of Magic, and then just head back home?  Recently, I re-watched an old episode of Deep Space Nine, "Trials and Tribble-ations" where Captain Sisco, Dax and company travel back to the Enterprise of Star Trek TOS. Specifically they go back into the episode "The Trouble with Tribbles."  It's was really, really well done, and it got me thinking about the mysteries of Proven Guilty and how TT Harry might fit in.  Here's part of a conversation between Harry and Ebenezer just a few paragraphs past the one above with Bob and Harry.

Harry- "I think we got played."

Eb - "By the Summer Lady?"

Harry - I shook my head. "I think Lily got suckered just as much as we did."

Eb - He frowned and rubbed at his head with one palm. "How so?"

Harry - "That's the part I can't figure," I said. "I think someone set Molly up to be a beacon for the fetches. And I'm damned sure that it was no accident that those fetches took Molly to Arctis Tor when it was so lightly defended. Someone wanted me there at Arctis Tor."

Ebenezar pursed his lips. "Who?"

"I think we got used by one of the Queens to one-up one of the others, somehow. But damned if I can figure out how."

OK, we know from a WOJ that Mab came out ahead after the events in PG, but during the novel she may have been stuck in her own realm, negotiating with the Black Council and defending her home, or at least holding down the fort in case a second attack came.  Harry and his party couldn't have made it to Arctis Tor if Lily hadn't given them some Summer protection, but the Winter Knight wouldn't have had any trouble with the cold.  So it's possible TT Harry may have gone to Arctis Tor and conspired with Mab in the events of PG.  The last sentence of the conversation between Eb and Harry probably refers to Maeve's manipulation of Lily, but perhaps more subtly it also points to Mab coming out on top in the game; possibly with the help of TT Harry.

Consider -  "Someone wanted me there at Arctis Tor."  Who fits that description better than a Harry himself?  I mean a future Harry who knows what would have happened happened if Molly didn't get help that she needed.  Following this logic it was TT Harry who set up Molly to be kidnapped by the fetches in order to save her.

That is as far as I have gotten.  I need to reread Proven Guilty to see if I can spot other places TT Harry might have intervened.  Of course, if this idea is correct then it is also possible TT Harry is at or near to many of the major events of PG, but doing his own thing; perhaps countering another time traveler as Sisko did in "Trials and Tribble-ations" or gathering more knowledge of the Black Council (or Outsider plans), or both.

For those of you who either came up with or have been on board with "TT Harry fixed LC" the longest, what else do you think TT Harry might have done and how do you think your ideas help explain the events in Proven Guilty?     

Maybe..  Or deciding to leave the party with Susan, and leaving Michael to die, and one of the Swords to be destroyed.  Harry tossed the idea around in his head before he decided to back Michael.  He was given the choice.  Who is your guest?  Michael, or Susan?  If he chose Susan he could have walked right out.  He chose to stay, fight, and lose Susan (basically), and start a war.  Or he could have left with Susan, and a KoTC would have been slain, Excalibur destroyed, the Red Court war would have been postponed.. 

Personally at the moment I'm leaning towards Harry leaving with Susan.

This choice seems like a good one to me, but it doesn't happen near the end of the book; and Jim stated the choice Harry made happened near the end of Grave Peril.  So, if you think that Harry saying "I love you" to Susan is too easy; or actually it wasn't a choice at all, it was a spontaneous utterance that Harry didn't think about or weigh the consequences of saying something else, there is one other choice Harry made that happens much nearer to the end of the book.  Harry could have killed Thomas; or actually I think Michael would have done it, when Thomas was trying to get Harry's help.  In fact, Michael was pushing pretty hard for the "let's have done with it and just kill the vampire" option.  For a moment it looked like Harry might go along with that option.

Think of the ramifications of making that choice.  It would have poisoned Harry's friendship with Michael, but only after Harry discovered the truth of what he had done. Thomas had information on where Susan and Justine had been taken.  So without that knowledge to go on Susan would have been turned and Justine would have died.  Harry would have realized he had made a mistake; and I think Michael too, if they had killed Thomas and then found out he had brought Amorachius to them.  In this scenario it would have taken some time for Harry to learn the truth.  The other possibility is having no real clues to go on Harry would have tried the break-in to Bianca's place anyway.  He would have ended up in same cell but while talking to Justine he would have told her that Thomas was dead and she would have told Harry that Thomas was his brother.  Now in this scenario Harry is still dealing with an infected Susan about go full vamp on him.  I'm not sure how this plays out.  Also, Harry still had to get his mojo back from Kravos' shade and he needed Susan help to pull it off.

Those issues aside, I think this alternative choice pushes Harry to the darkside as much or more than any other he could have made.

For peace talks, you don't actually need an arbiter or moderator. Just two (or more) sides willing to talk.  Plenty of times they've just been between the different sides and nothing else.

And as for neutral territory, I doubt his pub is actually large enough to fit enough people, nor would it have the dignity of the occasion.

Actually, I think it has already been announced by Jim that Ivy; and presumably Kincaid, will be on hand for the talks.

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.