The Dresden Files/White Night

Book #9 in The Dresden Files.

When Harry Dresden investigates the deaths of magic practitioners in Chicago, he finds that all clues point to an unlikely suspect--his half-brother Thomas. Determined to clear Thomas’ name, Harry finds himself unravelling a conspiracy within the White Council that threatens everything he hold dear...

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Tropes associated with White Night:

• Another Man's Terror: Subverted in a scene that had all the necessary elements but the terror. The woman in question had been killed by a White Court Vampire; when Molly experiences her last few moments, at first they think she is gasping in pain...
• Back-to-Back Badasses:Harry and Carlos Ramirez.
• Big Brother Instinct: Harry, despite being the younger brother, does not take well to Murphy even implying that Thomas may be behind the killings. To the extent that he nearly unleashes destructo magic on his surroundings at the mere thought of his brother being threatened.
• Burn the Witch: Harry and Murphy discover people being murdered by someone who writes the passage from the Book of Exodus with the aforementioned proclamation in it. Harry tells Murphy that the original wording was "harmful spell-caster" (in other words, only kill people who use dark magic, something the White Council tends to do itself with some gusto) but that King James changed it to killing witches in general when he translated the Bible because he didn't like them.
• Camp Gay: Thomas' hairdresser persona. He does this mainly because it is socially expected that a hot, well-dressed hairdresser will be gay as Christmas, and because it pulls in money. It also makes it a lot less likely that his customers will try to molest him.
• The Cavalry: Thomas, Marcone, Murphy, and a whole slew of others
• Destructo-Nookie: Two examples:
  • Inverted: Harry uses lust to power his magic by getting into a heated kiss with Lara Raith, forming a shield which allows him and Lara to survive the resulting explosion.
  • Bob thinks this happens when he is asked to investigate a crime scene where a Succubus was involved.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Harry is a bit surprised when he discovers that He Who Walks Behind, who Harry had beaten in the backstory, is an Outsider, one of his universe's Eldritch Abominations.
• Explosion Propulsion: The end of White Night. Harry. Lara. Explosives rigged to blow up the Raith Deeps. The solution? Harry makes out with Lara and uses the emotional energy to shield them, shooting them out of the entrance like a cannonball.
• Foreshadowing: An amusing one in White Night, when Harry is explaining the White Court's antics to Ramirez. He says that "You're worried Malvora's going to come smashing in like a big old grizzly bear and kill anything in their way." Later on, when Vittorio Malvora loses the duel and calls in his Black Council backup, well....that exact thing happens, sans an actual bear.
• Gambit Pileup: This is a given, as the White Court are involved. House Raith (under Lara Raith's command) are pushing for peace with the White Council, because Lara "loves peace." House Skavis is making a power play to undermine Raith by killing human women wih magical talent, in an effort to show that the Council is weak and so is Raith for making peace with them. Meanwhile, House Malvora is attempting to take credit for Skavis' plot by bumping off the Skavis agent and saying it was their plan. Madrigal Raith (in league with Malvora) adds to the complexity by baiting Harry onto the Skavis' trail, hoping Harry will do his thing all over Skavis. And in the opposite corner, there's Thomas, who is actively sabotaging both House's plots by sheltering the women they're targeting and obliquely helping Harry. Of course, it turns out that Vittorio Malvora, the agent for House Malvora in this case, is working for the Black Council, apparently to undermine the peace effort, and when everything falls apart he calls in the Black Council to ruin everyone's day to an epic degree. And at the end of it all, the entire thing was a gambit by Lara Raith to kill or deface the leadership of Skavis and Malvora to make House Raith stronger, and it worked beautifully. But the one who ends up on top of the whole situation is Gentleman Johnny Marcone, who leverages everything to become the first mortal freeholding lord under the Unseelie Accords, approved by Lara Raith, Donar Vadderung, and Harry Dresden.
• Heel Face Turn: Lash (Lasciel's Shadow)...this unfortunately seems to be a case of Redemption Equals Death.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Lasciel's shadow commits heroic suicide to save Harry by giving him power that allowed him to save himself but also burned out the section of his brain that contained her.
• It Makes Sense in Context: Describing stuff like how Harry gets away from the explosion at the end of White Night is necessarily going to involve saying this.
• Making a Splash: Carlos Ramirez specializes in water magic. Rather than conjuring and manipulating actual water though, he uses spells which take on some of the more useful qualities of water. Such as a shield which disintegrates bullets before they can reach him, just like what happens when you fire a gun into water.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Harry goes nuts when ghouls kill and eat two 16-year-old trainees. Ramirez is visibly disturbed.
• Scare'Em Straight: Harry to Molly, Chapter 30, with a slow-moving fireball in order to demonstrate that she wasn't ready to help him with his job because she hasn't learned that With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility. When talking about it to Molly later, he mentions that Ebenezer did the same thing to him when he was an apprentice.
• Stealth Pun: Monoc Securities.
• This Is Sparta: "I. Am not. Yoda."
• Trial by Combat: the climactic fight scene begins as a trial by combat, weighing Harry's accusation of murder in a time of peace against Vitto and Madrigal's assurance that the "mortal freaks" can't defend themselves. The challenge itself is awesome.
• Unspoken Plan Guarantee: Played straight when Harry's planning the assault on the White Court in the Deeps.
• Unstoppable Rage: During the Flash Back to New Mexico, when he tracks down a ghoul who kidnapped two sixteen-year-old wizards-in-training. He finds the ghoul standing over their bodies, having devoured parts of both of the teenagers (and it is implied that the ghoul raped one of them). Harry's response would make Jack Bauer proud.
• Your Approval Fills Me with Shame: The "Bowling for Vampires" incident. Harry does something particularly clever in his duel with Madrigal Raith and follows it up with one of his patented wisecracks. The White Court vampire audience cheers. Harry is discomfited.