57 pages • 1 hour read
Jim ButcherStorm Front
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2000A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 15-21Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 15 Summary
The police cars have come to collect Harry because Murphy has requested his presence at another murder scene. The police are understandably concerned about the naked man and the woman sitting in the rain, but Susan’s quick thinking saves Harry from arrest for indecent exposure. Harry dresses quickly, and the police take Harry to meet Murphy at an apartment, where he learns that the new murder victim is Linda Randall.
Harry struggles to keep his composure as he inspects the body. He concludes that his earlier hunch is correct: The murderer is using the storms to fuel their magic. He learns that Linda had called the police, claiming to know the identity of Jennifer and Tommy’s murderer, but the line went dead before she could say anything more. When Murphy sent a car to check on her, Linda’s body was discovered.
Murphy explains that Linda’s employers, the Beckitts, had a young daughter who was killed in the crossfire during a shoot-out between Johnny Marcone’s men and a rival gang three years ago. Then, she reveals her discovery of Harry’s card among Linda’s possessions and demands answers. He suggests that Linda used to work for Bianca and was friends with Jennifer but would have refused to talk if anyone had contacted her. Murphy insists that if Harry had told her about Linda, they might have been able to keep her alive.
However, Harry is afraid to give Murphy more information, reasoning that the shadowy figure who murdered three people and sent a demon after him might also attack her as well. In an attempt to keep Murphy safe from supernatural forces that she does not understand, he decides to find the murderer on his own. Furious at his refusal to speak, Murphy officially orders Harry to report to the police station in the morning for questioning, stating that if he does not comply, she will arrest him. Harry makes no promises and leaves, feeling guilty for breaking Murphy’s trust and failing to save Linda.
Chapter 16 Summary
Harry walks home again. On the way, a man attacks him and cuts off some of his hair before running away. Harry knows that the stolen hair can be used to kill him via thaumaturgy, so he gives chase. Just as the man escapes, Harry recognizes him as Johnny Marcone’s driver. Harry is unsure if Marcone is involved in this attack or if the driver is working alone, but he resolves to find out. Unfortunately, he does not know how to find either his attacker or the gangster. Then, he notices the driver’s blood under his nails and realizes that he can employ thaumaturgy himself, using the blood to track the man down.
Chapter 17 Summary
Harry’s spell leads him to the Varsity, a club that Marcone owns in the Chicago suburbs. Too angry for subtlety, Harry uses magic to bust the doors open and storms in, demanding to speak with Marcone at once. Marcone remains calm and asks his guests to leave. Now alone with Marcone and a handful of his enforcers (including the driver), Harry demands his hair back.
Marcone is confused and clearly does not know what is happening. Harry explains that the driver just attacked him and stole his hair. He speculates that the driver is working with the ThreeEye supplier with whom Marcone is at war; Harry suspects that this supplier is also behind the killings. When Marcone demands an explanation, the driver panics and tries to run, but one of Marcone’s enforcers shoots and kills him. Harry is stunned at this violence; he had not intended for anyone to die. He regrets his theatrical entrance and just wants to get out.
Marcone invites Harry to search the dead body to find his stolen hair, but it is gone. The man must have passed it off to whoever he works for. Harry demands that Marcone tell him who the ThreeEye supplier is, but Marcone does not know. He also adds that although Harry had good reason, he has made a public spectacle of Marcone and will have to bear the consequences of this misstep. Marcone decrees that if their mutual enemy kills Harry, the matter will end. However, if Harry survives, Marcone will have to make an example of him. Harry leaves, convinced that his own life is doomed; either the shadow man will kill him during the next storm, Murphy will arrest him, or the White Council will execute him.
Chapter 18 Summary
Filled with despair, Harry wanders through the city before finding himself at Linda’s apartment again. He sneaks in, hoping to find some new clue. In Linda’s bedroom, he sits, out of ideas. By now, it is early morning, and he sleeps for a while before waking up to morning sunlight.
From his seat on the floor, he sees a film canister under Linda’s bed and realizes that it is exactly like the one he found outside Victor’s lake house. He now considers the likelihood that the murders and Victor’s disappearance are connected. Suddenly, he hears someone opening the front door.
Chapter 19 Summary
A man sneaks through the apartment and into the bedroom and then crouches to search under the bed, and Harry realizes that the man is looking for the film canister. Harry steps out of his hiding place and grabs the man. The man explains that he is a photographer and that Linda hired him to take photos outside a house in Lake Providence on Wednesday night. The man took photos of the lurid scenes inside the house, which included candles, occult decor, and sex. Satisfied, Harry lets the man go but destroys his photographic evidence.
Harry starts to put the pieces together. He reasons that Linda was probably trying to blackmail Victor over his orgies, which means that he likely killed her in retaliation. Harry does not know why Victor would have killed Jennifer and Tommy, but he assumes that these two murders must be connected. Furthermore, he now suspects that Monica knew what her husband was up to all along and sent Harry out to the lake house on purpose. He needs to speak with Monica again, no matter how she feels about it.
Chapter 20 Summary
Harry goes to Monica’s house. She tries to make him leave, but he threatens to tell the police about Victor, so she relents. They go to the kitchen to talk, and on the way, Harry sees a photo on the wall that adds another clue. When he makes eye contact with Monica, he accidentally initiates a soul gaze and sees her past, in which she was abused by her parents and then by her increasingly violent husband. He also perceives that she has two children whom she would do anything to protect.
He breaks the psychic connection and demands that she tell him everything she knows about the deaths of Jennifer, Tommy, and Linda. Monica is startled because she did not know that Linda was also dead. She begs him to leave. Her two children ask her what is wrong, and she sends them to their rooms. Then, she agrees to tell Harry everything.
Chapter 21 Summary
Harry points to the photo that he saw and asks if Monica is related to Jennifer Stanton. She confirms that they were sisters. Then, she admits that her husband killed Jennifer and Tommy. She explains that Victor discovered magic a few years ago and became obsessed with studying and experimenting. He became increasingly erratic, talking to himself, losing control, catching things on fire, screaming for no reason, and seeing things that no one else could see. One night, he made Monica drink something that would make her understand everything. When she drank it, she could suddenly perceive inexplicable things; she could see the real person her husband had become: power hungry and consumed by greed. Harry realizes that she is talking about the psychic effects of ThreeEye. Monica reveals that Victor created the drug, mass-producing it to use and sell, but he could never make enough to be satisfied, and it eventually destroyed his mental health. When he realized that his anger helped fuel his power, he knew that he could use the emotions of others as well. Aware of Jennifer’s profession as an escort, he contacted her, and this led him to Linda. Through Linda, he met the Beckitts and Marcone’s driver. Victor convinced Marcone’s driver to work for him and then offered to help the Beckitts get revenge against Marcone in exchange for helping him with his sex rituals to raise power for his spells.
Monica endured this arrangement until she became alarmed by the way Victor was starting to look at the children. She wanted to leave Victor and asked Jennifer for help. Then, Victor killed Jennifer and Tommy, and Monica knew that she could not fight him, nor could she go to the police. That is when she approached Harry. Now, she fears that Victor will kill Harry too, leaving no one to save her and her children. She collapses into tears, and Harry stands to leave. At the door, the daughter stops Harry and asks him if he is going to kill her father. She understands that Victor is not “one of the good guys” anymore (255). Harry promises to do what he can and leaves.
Harry considers his options. He knows that he does not have long before Victor kills him. He also has no time to call for support from any magical allies, and he does not think it is safe to rely on Murphy. He resolves to take care of Victor alone. He thinks that he might be able to use Victor’s scorpion amulet against him. He also decides to tell Murphy some of what he has learned, but when he calls Murphy’s office, he learns that she has gone to his office to arrest him. (He never came to the precinct to submit to questioning that morning.) Fearing that Murphy might be in danger, Harry rushes to his office.
Chapters 15-21 Analysis
These chapters deliver the noir plot’s moment of despair, in which the hero’s many setbacks and failures suggest that it is impossible to prevail. As Harry reels from the emotional fallout and real-world implications of Linda’s death, his conflict with Murphy, the attack from Marcone’s man, Marcone’s anger, Victor’s murderous intentions, and the White Council’s threat of summary execution, these complex issues threaten to overwhelm him and leave him with very few resources to take charge of the situation. Only his own sense of Personal Integrity and Responsibility prevents him from seeking unscrupulous sources of magical power as his enemies have done. In these scenes, Harry’s own moral code shines through, casting him as compassionate (though decidedly old-fashioned) in his conviction that he has failed Linda, a “damsel in distress,” and has compromised his own self-imposed role as a protector, or “white knight” figure. Likewise, his altercation with Murphy highlights his fundamental good intentions despite his murky profession, as he regrets losing her trust through his own conflicted approach to the case. He also struggles with his desire to protect her from all that she does not understand, even though her job is to protect and serve the people of Chicago. As these personal setbacks intensify, the sense of impending doom sends Harry into a spiral of despair and resignation.
As is common in detective and noir stories, the gumshoe often catches a break in the case by pure luck, and for Harry, this moment comes when he returns to Linda’s apartment, filled with despair, and coincidentally finds a vital clue that reframes the entire situation. As he surges forth with renewed determination to find a way to save himself, the shadowy presence of the ominous Victor Sells takes a more prominent role, serving as the primary representative for the novel’s thematic focus on The Addictive Nature of Power. When Monica’s explanation reveals the truth of Victor’s increasingly obsessive and violent attempts to amass magical power, Harry finally understands the crux of the problem, and as the protagonist notes, Victor became “obsessed with power, consumed by greed” after his initial experiments with magic (250). For the moment, however, it is enough for Harry to know that the imminent storm—an intense symbol of addictive power—is connected to Victor’s dark quest as he amasses new levels of magical might to pursue his murderous aims.
In addition to representing magical power, the storms also signify Harry’s impending death at Victor’s hands, and as the title of the novel indicates, he becomes keenly aware of the next storm’s approach on the horizon, seeing it as a grim deadline for his own frantic struggles. As the next storm blows in, Butcher capitalizes upon the metaphorical significance of this imagery, emphasizing Harry’s feelings of inevitability and despair as both Victor and the White Council’s Doom of Damocles close in on him, leaving him with few options for escape.
Ironically, even as Harry learns about Victor’s obsession with power, he also begins to consider his own relationship to power, and it is clear that although he generally means well, he sometimes allows his own sense of power to trick him into making ruinous miscalculations that affect the lives of others. For instance, when he allows his anger to get the best of him and storms into Marcone’s club, this reckless use of magical power in a public venue risks the safety of innocent bystanders and tarnishes his own integrity. Additionally, he does not think through the implications of his posturing and is abruptly chastened when Marcone coldly executes the man who double-crossed him—an act for which Harry feels responsible, given that he provided the deciding information to the gangster. Thus, Harry must reevaluate his own assumptions and actions, particularly regarding when and how he chooses to wield his own considerable magical power. This issue also encompasses his responsibility to protect Monica and his reluctance to share the full facts with Murphy for fear of putting her in danger.
As Harry faces his own inner demons in the process of trying to stop Victor, the rogue spellcaster’s murderous actions throw the darker aspects of Harry’s partially disclosed past into sharper relief. Victor’s activities, combined with Harry’s “parole” under the Doom of Damocles, imply that Harry himself has already struggled with his own attraction to the benefits of magical power. It therefore follows that he has an intimate understanding of the consequences involved in misusing such power. In fact, throughout the entire series, the corruptive influence of power remains a primary concern for Harry as he gains skill and influence in the supernatural world and strives to retain his sense of Personal Integrity and Responsibility. His solution to this internal dilemma is to always use his power to help others, even when they do not ask for it. This hard-won moral code explains his resolution to stop Victor, for he knows that no one else can.
