Storm Front

Storm Front by Jim Butcher, 322 pages

Harry Dresden is a wizard, but not the Harry Potter type or the Gandalf type. Rather, he's a wizard-for-hire (but not for parties) more akin to a private detective. Just like any good noir detective novel, Dresden is a couple months behind on rent when hard-nosed police officer Karrin Murphy calls on him to help solve a gruesome double murder, almost certainly done by magical means. And just like any good noir novel, Dresden's poking around in Chicago's seedy underbelly (this time with vampires!) pulls the murderer's focus onto Dresden, making for some tough and dangerous situations.

This is the first book in Butcher's Dresden Files series (of which there are supposed to be, when all is finished, something like 30), and it serves as a decent introduction. I wouldn't call this the end-all, be-all of either fantasy or noir, but it's fun and I can tell that Butcher has a lot of room to work with and a lot of stories to tell in the world he's created. That said, the world of Harry Dresden is remarkably similar to that of Angel, the Buffy spin-off show about an L.A.-based private detective office run by a vampire with a soul. As I've been watching Angel recently, it's a bit unnerving to me, though as I've had plenty of people sing the praises of the Dresden Files, I hope that feeling fades as I read more of the series.