Holy s***,” I breathed, “heckhounds.”

I am continuing my Dresden Files journey and so very into it. In fact, I find Jim Butcher to be a perfect fantasy antithesis of my previous read/review, which was the last in the N.K. Jemisin Broken Earth trilogy. Where Jemisin is layered and cerebral, Butcher is spoon-feeding you and a fun romp. In each book of the series, I get hints of the Tru Blood series in that Butcher ploddingly repeats himself with character intros, Harry, tortured wizard Detective; Karrin Murphy tough as nails cute as a button lady cop; Bianca, vampire madam, and the like. If you were to jump into the 3rd book of the series you’d miss some context, but not really any nuance as Butcher is writing each book to be approachable and an entry to his world.

Once again James Marsters of Buffy is reading it to me and once again I am delighted. A splendid wizard detective he makes, basically if Spike was American and from Chicago he’d already be halfway there. I’ve seen where a lot of readers comment that book three is when the series gets started or gets good and I understand that in that there are some key knowledge nuggets dropped but I was already hooked from book one: I see this series as a fun romp, with some twists but you can mostly follow where the turns are taking you but that’s okay, especially because Butcher brings on the funny. This little bit had me actually laugh out loud.

“Holy shit,” I breathed. “Hellhounds.”
“Harry,” Michael said sternly. “You know I hate it when you swear.”
“You’re right. Sorry. Holy shit,” I breathed, “heckhounds.”

I mean, that’s just delightful. Harry Dresden gives me strong Raylan Givens a la Justified vibes. He is a good guy with a bad streak who is going to do what it takes to save the day, save the lady, and save himself and likely in that order. I already have #4 queued up and am eager to get started.