Yeah, the price of Backup has been putting me off, as well. But! Butcher is (finally) releasing a collection of his Dresden-verse short stories, including Backup, this fall. I think I'll just wait for that.
That's awesome. He has a number of shorts out there, so it'll be nice to have them all in one book.

And, ugh! That ending. Thinking about it has me metaphorically shaking my fist.