“Side Jobs” by Jim Butcher
*** (3 Stars) = Pretty good, but it's not the best (still worth reading).
“Side Jobs” is a compilation of short stories about Harry Dresden, a private investigator in Chicago. Harry Dresden also happens to be a wizard, so the cases he deals with are usually quite interesting and involve run-ins with vampires, werewolves, faeries, and evil sorcerer types. This book is made up of short stories that happen in-between the other Dresden Files (12 books in the series, with the 13th due out on July 26th!!).
I really enjoyed this book, but I wouldn’t recommend it unless you’ve read all of the other books in the series first. You’ll run into spoilers otherwise. It was really fun to see a lot of the back story that isn’t included in the regular books. The only downside to it, for me because I’ve read all of the books, is that some of the plots were a bit predictable (e.g. So-and-so can’t die because so-and-so is in xxxxx book later on in the series and such).
One of my favorite parts was the additional character development when two of the short stories were written from other character’s points of view. It was fun to get to see the inside of someone else’s head. My other favorite part is that some of the stories were very light-hearted. They weren’t all about catching the bad guy, and that was a fun change of pace.
So once again, I call this a good book. If supernatural mystery sounds interesting to you, or if you’re looking for something to fill in the gap after Harry Potter, I recommend the Dresden Files (first book is “Storm Front”). “Side Jobs” did a great job helping get my Dresden Files fix while waiting for the next book (can’t wait until Tuesday!).
