In this, the sixth book of The Dresden Files, Harry deals with messed-up family issues of every kind: Thomas's, Murphy's, a porn director's, and his own. Also with an oncoming avalanche of Shout Outs.
- In the Batman Cold Open, Harry and a little dog fight flying monkeys.
- Monkeys that merge into a giant demonic simian, which Harry pegs first as Monkey Kong, then Monkey Voltron, and finally Kongtron.
- Firefly. An almost-succubus is named Inari.
- Who wears her hair like Princess Leia.
- And Winnie the Pooh sleepwear. Way to grind it in about her innocence, there, Jim...
- Thomas recalls Mavra as having dressed like Hamlet's shrink at Bianca's party. Harry recites the "to be or not to be" line from Hamlet when Madge asks if he's an actor.
- Fake Mavra's still dressed like Hamlet in the homeless shelter.
- Lord Raith paraphrases Horatio's "flights of angels sing thee to thy rest" line, also from Hamlet.
- Joan remarks that the film crew's misfortunes make it seem like someone said Macbeth, prompting Harry to mentally quote that play's three witches. Also counts as Foreshadowing, as there actually are three (ex-wife) witches to blame.
- He makes a The Witches of Eastwick reference when Murphy spots the analogy later on.
- Harry defensively denies looking like Quasimodo when every woman's eyes turn to Thomas rather than him.
- Arthurian Legend:
- Jake mischievously suggests "Gowan Commando" as Bobby's stage name, arguing that "Gowan" sounds suitably-macho because he was one of those Round Table guys.
- Arturo, far quicker on the uptake, takes only a moment to pick up on Harry's own round table quip.
- Hinting that Murphy's not acting normal, Harry asks her where the aliens hid her pod. He's tempted to rag her further by singing Randy Newman's "Short People", but resists the urge.
- Thomas claims that the Mafia "kiss of death" custom depicted in The Godfather was originally inspired by Lord Raith, who could make it literal.
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Harry tells Inari to "make like Buffy" when they're surrounded by Black Court vampire lackeys. The narration Lampshades how it's not so easy in real life when staking the blampires in hand-to-hand proves impossible.
- Sliding on tiles, Harry muses that his boots were made for walking, paraphrasing Nancy Sinatra's signature pop single.
- On a related note, his crediting Thomas for fending off a blampire with a "boot to the head" references the "Ti Kwan Leep" skit by the Canadian comedy troupe The Frantics: a classic staple for the Dr. Demento show.
- Black Court vampires are "fast, like Jackie Chan fast".
- As-yet-unnamed puppy Mouse is introduced as "The Dog with No Name. Like Clint Eastwood, but fuzzier."
- At another point, he references the song "A Horse with No Name" by America.
- Harry quotes from Star Wars during the Luke, I Am Your Father moment.
- He calls Justin DuMorne his own personal Darth Vader.
- He remarks to Thomas that The Blue Beetle "doesn't look like much, but she's got it where it counts."
- When listing different cultural names for magic energy (mana, chi, etc.), Harry slips in, "the Force."
- In the interest of equal time, he also quotes Scotty's "Ye canna change the laws of physics" line.
- Assigned to collect things from a high shelf, Harry compares himself to the yeti from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer putting a star on a tall Christmas tree.
- Explaining why he left Arturo's party early, he claims he'd have turned into a pumpkin if he hadn't.
- Thomas claims he reads Machiavelli to Justine at bedtime.
- His own father made him memorize First Corinthians 13 as a safety warning.
- Lara herself quotes from John 15:13 about Thomas coming to love Justine after she nearly died for him.
- Talking to Jake about porn actors' stage names, Harry realizes they're like Dumbo's Magic Feather: a boost to confidence.
- Bob's drawing of the homeless shelter was good enough for Leonardo da Vinci.
- Upon first seeing Lara, Harry pictures himself floating into the air to drift along in her wake, like Pepé Le Pew.
- In the soulgaze, Thomas's inner self looks like Mount Olympus after the gods had died.
- Harry refers to one of his strategies with: "Run Away! Me and Monty Python."
- His urge to be polite to Lara, even though she's holding guns on him, he calls his "Inner Quixote". Likewise, his hesitation to hit Trixie is chalked up to his "Quixote Reflexes".
- Thomas asks Harry why he does so much Lone Ranger crap for a living.
- Harry quotes from The Incredible Hulk (1977) while preparing to bust out of a locked bedroom.
- The Raith mansion looks like the residence of a James Bond villain, and its estate is big and lush enough to rate a "Little Sherwood" nickname from Harry.
- The Deeps look like a cross between The King and I and Harem Honeys and Seraglio Sluts II.
- Held at gunpoint, Harry cites an anecdote about how Billy the Kid once missed his target at extremely close range, but opts not to push his luck.
- Harry prepared his bear-head belt buckle for "in the words of Foghorn Leghorn, just such an emergency". Activating it made him feel like Ludwig van Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" was playing as his personal soundtrack.
- The "Why are hot dogs sold in packages of ten but hot dog buns are sold in packages of eight?" question is mentioned in Animaniacs; specifically, this is the Warner Brothers' "unanswerable" riddle for the all-knowing Wally Llama.
- Jake quips that he looks like he shares a hairstylist with Einstein, Don King, and the Bride of Frankenstein after being electrocuted.
- Kincaid in his combat gear looks like he's auditioning for a John Woo movie.
- Harry, a true Chicagoan at heart, apparently believes in the Curse of the Billy Goat.
- Though a side story reveals it's actually true—in fact, he investigates its cause a few years later, and ends up on good terms with the Wyldfae who cast it.
- Murphy paraphrased Mae West: "Is that a puppy in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?"
- She also calls Harry "Bullwinkle" when he promises to call her in if there's trouble "this time for sure".
- And she says "Egad, Holmes", Watson-like, when Harry starts crowing about his sudden insight into the case.
- Kincaid gives Murphy a test of character straight out of The Untouchables, pushing her buttons just as Sean Connery did to Andy Garcia, culminating in a stand-off at gunpoint, followed by the line, "Oh, I like [her]."
- Few writers could have made the phrase "Bolshevik Muppet" into a climactic Pre-Mortem One-Liner, but Jim Butcher managed it.
- Harry muses that the White Council have always treated him like he was Lucifer, The Next Generation.
- Lord Raith's identical-twin mooks are tagged the Bodyguard Kens and Bodyguard Barbies by Harry.
- Harry says he's going Justice League on Mavra's scourge, calling in friends to go in "Stoker-standard".
- Murphy snidely calls Harry's kick-in-the-door blampire-hunting strategy "making like the Flying Van Helsings".
- She apparently had gotten most of her Black Court knowledge from movies, as she confused Dracula's traits from films with those from the original novel.
- "Be vewy, vewy quiet. We're hunting vampires."
- Harry calls his strategy of wearing down Lord Raith's stockpiled energy a "wascally-wabbit" plan.
- Arturo's third wife has had so many names that Harry refers to her as Trixie Scrump-Genosa-Vixen-Expialidocius.
- Harry's remark about Mavra playing sock puppet with the omega Nosferatu is probably a reference to the 1922 silent film, as the "N" is capitalized. If Harry were just showing off that he knows the old Rumanian word for "vampire", it'd be lower-case and in italics.
- The ridiculous nature of the entropy curse's effects is described as "murder weapons manufactured by the Acme Corporation."
- This was the first book to state that the Necronomicon is a genuine book of summoning rites in the Dresdenverse.
- Lara's outfit looks "very Carmen" at first, then becomes more The Pirates of Penzance when she accessorizes it with a rapier.
- Harry disses Lord Raith with a well-known children's taunting rhyme about K-I-S-S-I-N-G.
- Murphy quotes George Michael's "I Want Your Sex" while discussing Arturo's background with Harry.
- Opting to cover his burned hand with a single glove, Harry quips that he's choosing between looking like Michael Jackson or Johnny Tremain.
- Mike, Harry's mechanic, is an automotive Dr. Frankenstein. An especially-appropriate Shout-Out, considering how the Blue Beetle is mostly patched together from bits of other Volkswagens by this point...
- After a near-brush with death, Justine looks like the sort of terminally-ill child who'd be taken to Disneyland by the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
- Harry at one point describes a tick as being Nigh-Invulnerable, which is just how a certain superhero describes himself. Given Harry's love of comics, this is unlikely to be a coincidence.
- When pressing McCoy for information about his past, Harry says "I want answers. I want the truth."
- Harry references the opening scenes of 2001: A Space Odyssey when he says that violence towards women makes him want to go Kubrickian on the offender with a bone to the head.
