Harry Dresden is a wizard. He works in Chicago and works as a paranormal investigator. He is so good at what he does the Chicago police come to him when they have any cases that transcend mortal capability. The PD realise something very important about the "normal" world – it is full of strange and magical things and to investigate these, as with other areas of police work, you need an expert.

Business has been slow recently so when the police approach Harry and ask for his help investigating a double murder committed with apparent black magic techniques, he quickly accepts – a decision he quickly regrets.

Soon Harry finds himself in the middle of a desperate situation where more victims keep cropping up and the killer knows he is involved and seems to want to make him one of the next victims – but the police also suspect Harry may actually be the killer!

Harry Dresden is a wonderful character. A true wizard he makes his living solving paranormal investigations and finding lost things and is heartily sick of people coming to him for love potions and other similar spells and such-like. His involvement with the Chicago murder investigations starts out like any other paranormal case but Harry has to deal with the possibility that, at the very least, he may be accused of the murders.

Some murder-mysteries, even those with paranormal elements, allow the main characters to investigate the crimes using their mysterious "abilities" but this books takes it a little further. Harry Dresden persuades faeries to help and interviews Vampires to try and discover the identity of the killer.

As far as I can determine, Storm Front is Jim Butcher's first novel – a fact that I find absolutely amazing. It is written with a skill and fluency that feels like the results of many years of writing. Luckily for me there are a further five novels in the Dresden Files and I am definitely looking forward to reading more of them. If this is just the start then who knows where this series could lead. Fabulous fun!

Storm Front by Jim Butcher is a highly entertaining book. It's a well written story about Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden a wizard who, by his own admission in a "Blue-Collar" wizard. He is not wealthy, nor famous, and you can find him in the Yellow Pages under Wizard, well where else?

Harry's ad looks like this:

Harry Dresden Wizard
Lost Items found. Paranormal Investigations.
Consulting. Advice. Reasonable Rates.
No Love Potions, Endless purses, or Other Entertainment

Harry has had a couple of slow months, he's behind on his office rent, dead broke, and the clients are not breaking down his door, but his luck, if you can call it that, is about to change. With a phone call from a mysterious lady who doesn't want to give her real name, another from the local Police, for whom Harry works as a consultant on paranormal cases, and a Warden from the White Council dogging his footsteps, life is about to get a whole lot busier for Harry.

So now Harry's got a missing husband to track down for the mysterious lady, a very grisly dual murder that could only have been committed by magic, and the Warden convinced he's the one who killed with magic. Throw into the mix, a hot date, a dewdrop faery, a Vampire, a Mobster, the odd demon and an Evil Wizard out to kill Harry and you have the makings of an awesome story.

This is a first book in a great series that chronicles Harry's life and cases. The book is fast paced with humour and irony generously thrown in, you simply can't help but want to find out what Harry's up to next. Whether you read it or listen to the audio book, it is well worth your time and you might as well round up the next book in the series because you will be wanting to start that one next.

Audio books can be bought at: Media Fans
Listening Time 10.5 hrs