Dec 03, 2006 10:04 PM
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Love to read about wizards and spells and vampires and werewolves and all that stuff?But Harry Potter is a bit too ..er.. juvenile for you.Meet Harry Dresden, Private Investigator,and wizard extraordinaire.He is the only person listed in the yellow pages as a Professional Wizard.However he is not minting money in his chosen profession as he possesses that rare artifact in these modern days?a conscience.He refuses to make money by indulging in fake hocus-pocus and so loses clients to charlatans.Take a look athis business card.
HARRYDRESDEN—WIZARD
Lost Items Found. ParanormalInvestigations.
Consulting. Advice. ReasonableRates.
No Love Potions, EndlessPurses, Parties, or Other
Entertainment
Storm front is the first book in the Dresden bookseries.Jim Butcher does a great job sketching out Harry's world very well.You can almost see Harry's dinky office,the rain slicked streets of Chicago and the rest of the supernatural horrors.
Dresden works as a part-time consultant for Chicago police(with regards to supernatural crimes such as vampire attacks, troll mauraudings, and faery abductions of children) and is asked by best friend and director of Special Investigations, Karrin Murphy to look into a particularly grisly double murder.Harry deduces that the murder was done by means of black magic.Unfortunately he needs to tinker with the spell to figure it out.And that is doubly dangerous since Harry is currently under probation.He had killed in self defense before,violating one of the Laws of Magic and the White Council had placed him in probation.One more slip and it is 'Goodbye Harry' forever.
Harry’s troubles do not end there.Our boy has a real talent for collecting enemies.Gentleman Johnny Marcone the local Mafia head honcho does not want him investigating the case.He also earns the enmity of Bianca, the RedCourt vampire during the course of investigation.As bills pile up Harry badly needs to solve his current case?that of finding Monica Sells's missing husband.MeanwhileHarry has to make time for his budding relationship with reporter Susan Rodriguez who writes for a supernatural tabloid.
For the uninitiated,White Council is the governing body ofwizards and has the power to order the execution of anyone found violating the Laws of Magic.The vampires are dividedinto 3 courts.The Red Court vampires hide their true gruesome forms with beautiful glamour and infects via bite.The White Court vampires are born with their powers and suck emotions such as fear,lust etc.The Black Court vampires are the traditional kind portrayed in books.They are repelled by garlic,crosses etc and can be killed by staking.
Add pizza eating fairies,giant scorpions,demons on rampage,one trigger happy assassin from the White council to the mix and you get a clearer idea of Harry’s world.The review would not be complete without mentioning Bob,the talking skull who functions as Harry’s assistant.His acerbic sense of humor matches Dresden's style perfectly.
Dresden Files falls into that rare genre called urban magic.That is sorcery set in the modern era. The most appealing feature of theseries is that there is never a dull moment.You meet a rich variety of characters.Character development suffers a bit in the first book.But as the series progress Butcher fleshes out each of the characters and bring in more of them.Here are some you will meet in the later books.There is Harry’s faerie Godmother(perish the thought of a benign,tiny being with gossamer wings who grants wishes.She’s a sexy siren who wants to enslave Dresden),enigmatic and sexy White Court vampire Thomas who manages to pop up at the right moment to render aid and who has his own private agenda,the werewolf pack ‘Alphas’, Ebenezar McCoy who was Harry’s mentor and many more.
So many of the books and movies these days have infalliable heros.They know what the right thing to say and do at the right time.Things are just black or white.Dresden does not suffer from lack of gray.His shady past and his stubbornness in withholding important facts from Karrin Murphy makes him more human.He is not always right.Examining the murder scene, Harry remarks that the since the murder was that violent, the murderer must be a woman.For only a woman could harness that much hatred.As it turned out the murderer did hate his victims,but he turned out to be a man.
There are already 8 books in the series and number nine will be out on April 2007.Buy them all and get ready for a rollickingtime.There are also audio books upto book number four, voiced by James Marsters who played Spike in Buffy the vampire slayer.
