The Dresden Files
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50 free The Dresden Files trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Jim Butcher's Dresden Files turned a wisecracking Chicago wizard into one of urban fantasy's best-loved heroes. Harry Dresden takes the cases the police cannot explain, picks fights with things far above his weight class, and pays for every win. Across the novels the stakes climb from a single murder case to open war between supernatural nations. This quiz follows the series from the opening case through the later novels. Expect questions on Harry's friends, pets and enemies, the wizards' council and its enforcers, the faerie queens, fallen angels and vampire courts, and the scenes fans retell most often. A few questions step outside the books to the television adaptation, the audiobooks, the tabletop game and how the series came to be written. It suits readers partway through the series as well as long-time fans, though anyone who has not finished the books should expect spoilers. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so a wrong guess still leaves you with the story behind it.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Harry Dresden, the wizard detective of the Dresden Files, is famously the only one listed where?
In the phone book
In the phone book is where Harry advertises openly, even though magic in his world is real but widely discredited.
Q 02Bob, the spirit of intellect who advises Harry Dresden, lives inside what object in Harry's lab?
A skull
A skull houses Bob, who is bound to it and to its owner's commands. He can leave only with permission, and would die in strong sunlight without a host body.
Q 03In Dead Beat, what kind of creature is Sue, the zombie that helps Harry Dresden fight necromancers?
A Tyrannosaurus rex
A Tyrannosaurus rex named Sue joins Harry, a handful of Wardens and Thomas Raith to stop a Halloween ritual meant to turn a necromancer into a minor god.
Q 04Which Hollywood star executive produced the Dresden Files TV series through his firm Saturn Films?
Nicolas Cage
Nicolas Cage was an executive producer of the adaptation, which was shot in Toronto with a pilot based on the opening novel.
Q 05In the Dresden Files, which classic novel exposed the weaknesses of the Black Court vampires?
Dracula
Dracula's publication made the Black Court vulnerable, and the tie-in roleplaying game is framed as an in-world attempt to expose other monsters the same way.
Q 06Which Chicago police lieutenant uses Harry Dresden as a consultant and is later demoted to sergeant?
Karrin Murphy
Karrin Murphy loses her command for abandoning her post to help Harry rescue Molly Carpenter from a Faerie fortress, and is later dismissed from the force altogether.
Q 07Harry Dresden's car, crushed by a monster in Changes and restored in Twelve Months, is what model?
Volkswagen Beetle
The Volkswagen Beetle, known as the Blue Beetle, is flattened into a ball along with Thomas Raith's car. Thomas hands it back fully rebuilt at the end of Twelve Months.
Q 08Which Buffy the Vampire Slayer actor is the longtime narrator of the Dresden Files audiobooks?
James Marsters
James Marsters has voiced Harry since the earliest audiobook. He passed on auditioning for the television role because he did not want to relocate from Los Angeles.
Q 09The second Dresden Files novel sends Harry after four different kinds of which monster?
Werewolves
Werewolves fill Fool Moon: a teenage gang, FBI agents who change shape with talismans, and a millionaire who is the most dangerous type of all.
Q 10Which novel opens the Dresden Files, as Harry hunts a sorcerer who makes victims' hearts explode?
Storm Front
Storm Front makes Harry the White Council's obvious suspect in the killings, because as a teenager he killed his own mentor with magic.
Q 11Harry Dresden shares his Chicago apartment with a house cat of more than thirty pounds, called what?
Mister
Mister is also the usual body Bob borrows when the spirit goes out on errands, an arrangement the cat does not seem to mind.
Q 12In Blood Rites, Harry Dresden keeps a stray Tibetan temple dog puppy and gives it what name?
Mouse
Mouse is the pup left hiding in Harry's car after he and Thomas Raith rescue the litter from demon apes, and it warns him of a vampire attack on the ride home.
Q 13In Blood Rites, White Court vampire Thomas Raith is revealed to be what relation to Harry Dresden?
His half-brother
His half-brother, as a portrait of their shared mother Margaret LeFay and a soulgaze confirm. She left both sons the same planted message: help each other.
Q 21Michael Carpenter, the devout builder who fights beside Harry Dresden, wields which holy sword?
Amoracchius
Amoracchius is briefly lost in Grave Peril, when Harry tries to use it to break a pledge to a Sidhe and his treachery lets her claim the blade.
Q 22In the Dresden Files, each of thirty fallen angels is bound to which kind of object?
Silver coins
Silver coins, the thirty denarii paid to Judas Iscariot, each hold one of the Fallen. Whoever takes one up can become the angel's mortal host.
Q 23Which Denarian leader, host to the fallen angel Anduriel, is a recurring enemy of Harry Dresden?
Nicodemus
Nicodemus tortures a holy swordsman to death in Death Masks, kidnaps the child Archive in Small Favor and leads a heist on a god's vault in Skin Game.
Q 14In Changes, vampires kidnap eight-year-old Maggie, who proves to be what relation to Harry Dresden?
His daughter
His daughter was raised by a family in Guatemala, and Harry learns she exists only when her mother asks for help. The kidnappers plan a blood curse that would kill her relatives too.
Q 15Harry Dresden consults for which Chicago Police division that takes the unexplainable cases?
Special Investigations
Special Investigations, or SI, pays Harry to review cases that appear to have a magical element, which is how a wizard ends up at Chicago crime scenes.
Q 16Which American cable network aired the Dresden Files TV series, then cancelled it after one season?
Sci Fi Channel
Sci Fi Channel showed twelve episodes in 2007 and confirmed that August that there would be no more, despite a fan letter campaign to save the show.
Q 17In Death Masks, a Vatican priest hires Harry Dresden to recover which stolen Christian relic?
The Shroud of Turin
The Shroud of Turin has been taken by thieves known as the Churchmice, and fallen angels want it to power a plague curse at an airport.
Q 18Which Chicago crime boss is made a baron under the Unseelie Accords for aiding Harry Dresden?
John Marcone
John Marcone earned the title in exchange for bringing mercenaries and explosives to a White Court battle. In the opening novel he already rules the city's underworld.
Q 19Which reporter for the Midwestern Arcane is Harry Dresden's love interest in the early novels?
Susan Rodriguez
Susan Rodriguez is half-turned by vampires at a party and leaves Chicago, turning down Harry's marriage proposal because her condition might one day drive her to kill him.
Q 20Which ruler of the Winter Court buys Harry Dresden's debt to the Leanansidhe in Summer Knight?
Mab
Mab offers to cancel the debt in exchange for three favours, the first being to find who murdered the Summer Knight and stole his mantle.
Q 24Which Warden of the White Council hounds Harry Dresden in the first novel, sure he is a killer?
Morgan
Morgan ends up saving Harry's life at the burning house and admitting he was innocent. In Turn Coat he arrives wounded at Harry's door, framed for murder and asking for protection.
Q 25The Leanansidhe, a Winter Court Sidhe who hunts Harry Dresden in Grave Peril, is what to him?
His godmother
His godmother holds a pledge of service from Harry, and in Grave Peril she tricks his girlfriend into trading away a year of memories in return for a cure.
Q 26Harry Dresden's attack at Bianca's party in Grave Peril starts a war with which vampire faction?
The Red Court
The Red Court fights the White Council for years afterwards, and Harry is nearly handed over to the vampires as a peace offering in Summer Knight.
Q 27The Archive, a child who holds all human written knowledge, gets which nickname from Harry Dresden?
Ivy
Ivy is the name Harry gives her because she has no given name of her own. She referees his duel in Death Masks, with a mercenary as her bodyguard.
Q 28Shiro, a Knight of the Cross in the Dresden Files, became a Baptist by mistake at whose concert?
Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley's show led to a misunderstanding that left the swordsman a Baptist. He later trades himself for Harry and dies after being tortured by the Denarians.
Q 29In Skin Game, Harry Dresden joins a crew of old enemies to rob a vault belonging to which Greek god?
Hades
Hades stops time during the heist to tell Harry that the vault is really an armoury, where powerful relics wait for someone fit to wield them.
Q 30Which god is Donar Vadderung, the security-firm boss who advises Harry Dresden in Changes?
Odin
Odin warns Harry that the kidnappers plan a blood curse on Maggie's whole family, then turns up at the final battle as one of the Grey Council.