"Small Favor" by Jim Butcher (Roc)

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Small Favor
Jim Butcher
432 pp. Roc. $23.95
Pub. Date: 4/1/2008
ISBN-13: 978-0451461896

Reviewed by Lindsay Stotts

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You walk into your local post office, just for a few stamps. The walls are plastered with Most-Wanted posters, yellowing and curling in at the corners; angry, despicable faces staring back at you. Chilling you to the bone. You look closer at the faces. At the names.

That one’s a vampire. You can always tell; they have such dead, bloodless eyes. Hey. That one’s a faerie. I don’t want to be her Pinocchio. And that one—I don’t know what that one is.

Vampires. Faeries. Hellfire. Knights. Weregoats. Denarians. And wizards.

In what strange world could you find such an eclectic—and downright frightening—rogue’s gallery of things that go bump in the night? Harry Dresden’s world, of course. As in Harry Dresden, the famous Chicago wizard. The poster child for dumb luck. The man responsible—almost singlehandedly—for keeping the “Band-Aids” corporation profitable.

He’s fought every demon, every evil, every monster, every mutant and every mythical creature known to human and wizard-kind. In “Small Favor”, things aren’t any different. Harry just can’t catch a break (unless it involves his nose, and a Louisville Slugger). This time out he has to go negotiate with the Denarians concerning the recovery of all written knowledge. Not just some of it—all of it. Ever done. Just one catch, though. It’s entombed in the body of a little girl. This just reeks of the bizarre stuff Dresden was made for. And he doesn’t disappoint.

Speaking of not disappointing. Jim Butcher once again delivers a spectacular adventure for Harry and his posse. Not only has Butcher evolved as a writer, Dresden has evolved with him. Into a very atypical hero. Glory and fame for Harry? Not a chance. Not only does he not have glory, fame or fortune, he gets the crap beat out of him on every page. Butcher doesn’t hold back on the punishments, wailing on Harry like a hyperactive nine-year old on a sugar speedball bludgeons a piñata. It’s supernatural shock and awe; magical caps getting popped in some magical butts. Never have I read a book where the main character—or any character—gets repeatedly beaten to within an inch of death, and keeps getting up and asking for more. He just keeps going, plugging on. Like the Energizer Bunny. But with cool magical tricks up his sleeve. Imagining up the next torture for Harry must be a perverse pleasure for Butcher.

Butcher delves even deeper into the character development of Harry, Michael, Murphy and Thomas, which was icing on the cake for an already edge-of-your-seat-non-stop-action-page-turner of a novel. Harry even gets a little “something something” if you know what I mean. (Okay, mind out of adult-bookstore-with-the-blackened-windows-on-the-corner, he didn’t get anything THAT good, that would have been way too generous of Butcher). With each book, the characters come to life more and more. Butcher makes them all so relatable that you can’t help sitting there, mesmerized, rooting for their favorite, praying you backed the right pony. C’mon SeaBiscuit!

Last Word:
The world’s favorite wizard-detective strikes again! Butcher just keeps making this series better and better. Not a disappointment to be found, just sheer excitement, adventure, and butt-whoopings a plenty. Watch out Harry Potter and Sherlock Homes, here comes Harry Dresden!

Final Score: 90 out of 100

Related Posts:
"Backup" by Jim Butcher (Subterranean Press)