If you read fantasy books enough, you’ll eventually hear about Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files, which is a series about Harry Dresden, a wizard for hire in Chicago. Storm Front is the first book in the series.
Book Stats
352 pages
Fantasy/Mystery
First book of the Dresden Files
Characters
The book centers around Harry Dresden, a wizard for hire in Chicago. He works private clients as well as being a consultant for the Chicago Police. Harry has a history of being in trouble with the White Council, the governing council that oversees wizards. The book is in first person from Harry’s perspective. Butcher does an excellent job of giving Dresden a history, referring to different cases that he had done in the past.
Setting
The book is set in Chicago in modern day, although due to Harry’s use of magic, technology doesn’t work around him, so it feels a little less modern, but it’s still present day.
Plot
Harry starts out the book behind on his bills and looking for work, he gets a call from the CPD to investigate a gruesome murder committed by magic. He also gets involved in an investigation for a woman’s missing husband. The story is a mystery plot as Harry explores what caused the murders as well as investigating the missing person.
Enjoyment
The book did some interesting things, I enjoyed seeing some of the ways that the magic was used in the plot. The magic never seemed forced and worked well within the story. Unfortunately, the selling point for any mystery is the character, and that just didn’t work for me all that well. Harry was interesting at times, but just didn’t work well enough for me. The book wasn’t bad, but I don’t know how well Dresden as a character could carry the 12 or so books that are in the series. I’ll eventually buy the second book in the series, but it’s not going to be a priority for me.
Overall Grade
Does some interesting things, but I wasn’t tearing through it.
6/10
Reviews and Ramblings 
archaeofieldtech
/ June 21, 2011Storm Front is one of the first books in the series right? Or the first? I started reading the books after watching the TV show, which was pretty good, but very different from the books. Anyways- Dresden’s character becomes much more developed through the series. He gets a lot more interesting, so there is hope for the future!
It does take a couple books to get the ball rolling though. If you get bored with them, I would suggest skipping to one of the much later books. Unless you prefer to read them in order!