Cover of Blood Rites

Blood Rites

core novel 2004 The Dresden Files

Record

First published2004
Original language EN
Work typenovel
Canon statuscore
Reader rating4.29 (142,598 ratings, collected 2026-09-13)
Page count372
First-edition ISBN9780451459879
Internal chronology6

Synopsis

Wizard detective Harry Dresden accepts a job from his White Court acquaintance Thomas Raith in Blood Rites, the sixth Dresden Files novel, to investigate a series of deaths on the set of an adult film. The producer, Arturo Genosa, is convinced he is the target of a curse rooted in Italian folk witchcraft, but Dresden's investigation soon shows that the women connected to him are the ones actually dying, apparently at the hands of someone wielding a rare and dangerous form of curse magic. While pursuing the film-set murders, Dresden separately learns of a newly established nest of Black Court vampires within the city, led by the ancient and formidable vampire Mavra, and recognizes the danger of letting such a nest take root. Balancing both threats, he assembles a small team to move against the nest before it grows too strong to dislodge.

Where it sits

Notes

  • From the series record (The Dresden Files): 18-novel main sequence (2000-2026, ongoing), narrated throughout by wizard-detective Harry Dresden. Publication order equals in-story chronological order for the entire main sequence. Peace Talks and Battle Ground (both 2020) were originally written as a single novel that grew too long and was split into two by the publisher, released 2.5 months apart, a genuine bibliographic quirk, not a numbering error. A 19th novel (Mirror Mirror) is announced for 2027 but unpublished and is not registered.

Neighbouring works

Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings, but they resolve to the exact same sequence for this book, so one combined line is shown instead of two identical ones.

  • Reading order, within the series The Dresden Files: position 6 of 18: previous Death Masks (2003) · next Dead Beat (2005)

Sources

← The Dresden Files dossier · All universes

Part of the Library. Fields without an identified source are omitted, never guessed.