Storm Front by Jim Butcher
Storm Front (Book One of The Dresden FIles)
Author: Jim Butcher
Publisher: ROC (April 2000)
ISBN: 978-0-451-45781-3
For those of us that were fans of the SciFi series we know all to well who Harry Copperfiled Blackstone Dresden is and what his job is. For those of us who don’t the door to his office reads…
Harry Dresden-Wizard
Lost items found. Paranormal Investigations.
Consulting. Advice. Reasonable Rates.
No Love Potions, Endless Purses or Other Entertainment
When Harry Dresden is called into assist his friend on the Chicago Police Force, Lt. Karrin Murphy, he is met with a scene unlike any wizard, or police officer for that matter, would like to see. One that can only be explained by magic, which is why Dresden is there in the first place. Reluctantly accepting the opportunity to help out Murphy and The Chicago Police, mainly due to the rent that is over due on his apartment and office, he is spun into a scenario that is steeped deeply in the dark corners of the back alleys of the streets of Chicago. A world that is ruled by drug dealers, gangsters, hit men, vampires, and faeries with near useless information.
Jennifer Stanton works for Bianca, a vampire who runs a respectable whore house on the fringes of the city. Tommy Tom is a muscle man who works for Gentleman Johnny Marcone, a mob boss who rules the streets of Chicago. Tommy Tom is a regular customer of Jennifer’s and on this particular romp in the hay he meets his match at the hands of a powerful wizard who uses his black magic, and unknown powerful forces to conjure up a spell that rips the hearts right out of both of them in throws of their own lust. It’s a case that screams black magic, to the forces Special Investigations Division, in which Murphy and her partner Carmicheal are the only officers, and the White Council, who suspect from the beginning that Dresden is at the bottom of this particularly heinous act of black conjuring. Through the course of trying to get to the bottom of this crime Harry will need every available spell that he has at side; every talisman he can get his hands on, every ounce of power that he has, and every spell he has ever cast, and some he hasn’t.
As Harry whittles away at the leads that he can garner from an unsuspecting faerie, who thinks he is getting a free meal of honey and bread, a vampire madam, and who ever else he can manage to scrape together from those initial sources; we are led on a chase that pushes the very edges of action that you can illicit from a book. Butcher does an amazing job of leading us through every scene with his eloquent prose. The action is fast paced and around every corner Harry seems to hit another wall. Fighting toad daemons, ever growing brown scorpions, Morgan (Harry’s Warden for the White Council), and his own limitations; Harry will dig deep into a world steeped in drugs, lust, mobsters, and death.
Storm Front is very well written and fast paced. The style of Jim Buther lends itself well to the world of Harry Dresden and the streets of Chicago. His vision of what it must be like to be wizard makes you want to run out to Half Price and scoop up every book you can grab on the subject; it however drove me right to the bookstore to snatch up Full Moon, Book Two of The Dresden Files. I can’t wiat to dig deep into the world of Harry Dresden and his exploits as he solves the crimes that plague Chicago in these most fascinating stories. My only regret, that I hadn’t discovered this world he has created until now. It would seem that I have a lot of catching up to do, as of June 7th, and my purchase of Full Moon, there are ten books including the two listed above. Guess I better get reading.
