Review: Storm Front (& Fool Moon), by Jim Butcher

Ratings:

Storm Front:🌩️🌩️🌩️🌩️🌩️

Fool Moon: 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕

Initial Reaction:

I HAVE FOUND MY NEW OBSESSION!

One Sentence Summary:

Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden is a hardboiled detective -- I mean, wizard-- who investigates crimes that are just a little too... unusual for the normal police force.

Tell Me More:

When I was but a wee lad, I discovered a book called The Falcon's Malteser by Anthony Horowitz (of Alex Rider fame). It was the first of the Diamond Brothers' Mysteries series, and my first introduction to the hardboiled detective genre. At the time, I wasn't well read enough to understand that The Falcon's Malteser was actually a spoof of The Maltese Falcon, and the Diamond Brothers were knockoffs of Sam Spade; but I have since grown to appreciate Dashiell Hammett as well as Anthony Horowitz, and I'm eternally grateful to Mr. Horowitz for introducing me to a genre that I probably love more than any other.

The book that launched my love of detectives!

That being said... TAKE A HIKE DIAMOND BROTHERS! MOVE OVER SAM SPADE! HARRY DRESDEN IS HERE!

I started the audiobook of Storm Front as I went into work this morning, because I knew that the 8 hour audiobook (on 2x speed, because narrators read audiobooks slowly) would fit perfectly into my 4 hour morning shift. It was pulpy! It was noir-y! It was hilarious! It was so good, when I went home in the afternoon I HAD to start the second one! This might just be my entire personality for the next few months!

As always happens when I read an unexpectedly delicious book, Storm Front scratched an itch I didn't know I had. In this case, I was jonesing for a good old-fashioned detective novel-- a genre that (IMO) has slowly been edged out by thrillers in todays literary landscape. When I read Sylvia Moreno-Garcia's Certain Dark Things last week, I talked about how that book was a cartel-noir, not an American noir, and I think this book is the perfect example of the American noir genre. There were multiple plot threads interwoven like a spider's web, all brought together by (who else?) the femme fatale! There was mob violence straight out of Chinatown! There was even a wizard battle! (oh, wait... that's not hardboiled detective noir trope😬)

Let's talk about the wizardry for a minute, shall we? Butcher's worldbuilding is fascinating to read, primarily because it walks the incredibly fine line of influencing the narrative without overwhelming it. We hear about the White Council, the Doom of Damocles, and even catch snippets of Harry's backstory, but these morsels of worldbuilding don't bog down the narrative because Butcher only tells us about them to the extent that they have relevance to the narrative. We need to know about the White Council and the Doom because Harry is being monitored, and why do we need to know that Harry is being monitored? SPOILERS! Go read the book!

Fool Moon does a good job of taking everything we saw in the first book and building upon it in a way that assures us Dresden (and Butcher) are more than just a one-trick pony. Based on these first two books, it seems that the basic formula is "detective novel w/ a sprinkle of magic," and Fool Moon seems to be "the one with werewolves." This book does to werewolf lore what Certain Dark Things did to vampire lore-- instead of there being one type of werewolf, there are several, each with their own strengths, weaknesses, and means of transformation.

Dresden has been on my radar for a while now, but I've always kinda avoided him for two reasons:

1. This series is soooooooo long. It currently stands at 17 novels (with an 18th due in January) and 34 short stories. It's gonna be a bit of a commitment.
   

2. I've heard Harry's a bit of a misogynist, and I just kinda didn't feel like reading that. Having started the series, however, I have thoughts. Harry IS a bit of a misogynist in the first book. He has pretty negative views of women. However, it's kinda hard to take seriously the opinions of a man who fights demons in the nude. Also, those views are nowhere near as prevalent in the second book (at least, they didn't seem to be to me); so I'm more inclined to chalk up the misogyny to Butcher's attempt to emulate the hardboiled noir genre (which, for all I love it, is still a child of the 30s and 40s). Does this excuse it, no; but I've heard it gets better as the books progress and Harry grows as a character-- and given what I see in Fool Moon, I'm inclined to believe it.

Both of these books are getting 5/5 (Storm Front gets 🌩️storm clouds🌩️, and Fool Moon gets 🌕full moons🌕 because they were just so dang fun! I can't wait to continue this series! I wasn't lying earlier when I said that this might just be my entire personality for the foreseeable future, because Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden has definitely got me under his spell!