Dead Man's Hand

Let me say something before I review the book itself. I have heard about this book because I absolutely love Jim Butcher. The author of this one is his son. But the fact they are related (and that I am a huge fan of Jim) has nothing to do with the fact I actually picked this one up and the rating and opinion I have on it. Why am I getting into ongoing series, though? Why? Now, in this specific case, I will use the excuse of wanting a good, solid, fun urban fantasy. You can say there are many urban fantasy series going on and that's factual. But at the same time... so many of them are what I call “porntasy”. Usually female protagonist, she has men buzzing around her, sex scenes galore, ehhh. I dislike those. But this. THIS. It's just what I wanted; an action mystery with supernatural elements. Yes. Hell, it even hits another thing I love, namely having prominent characters who are older. Yes, make them older, make them kinda ragged and messed up and unhappy. Sure, an enthusiastic young puppy-in-a-human-body is fine, some of them can be even pretty adorable (like here), but we all need the old master who is not there just to die 150 pages in, so the young one can take over. They can both bring something to the table and be equally valuable. LIKE HERE. Now, we are way too early in the series to say the old character won't just drop dead. Maybe he will. But so far it's promising. So we have the grumptastic old guy, Mayflower. Cute name for someone whose blood is more alcohol than... you know, blood. And who drives a beat up tank of a Jeep. And shoots stuff. But he is cool, I promise. Used to be the partner of a witch from the magical law enforcement, but recently she got brutally murdered and as she was dying, she wrote a message; “Kill Grimsby.” The fuck is a Grimsby? It's a hapless, weak, mouthy young guy with mediocre magical abilities, working at fast food restaurant, entertaining kids. So they need to team up to solve the case and find out what happened and why. Everything got set up perfectly for one of those buddy cop comedies. Two people who deal with their issues in different ways, forced on a mission together. Some room for political intrigue. A little world building on that front, though fairly typical at this point. Now, I am not going to moan much about that, we have seen how far a fairly typical start can lead (that time the author's ACTUAL DAD made a wizard detective ride a reanimated T-rex to battle, ehehehe). And honestly, at this point, I am happy with what we have. So far the enemy creatures are dangerous, but not world-ending-dangerous, again, fine for the first book. The powercreep needs to set in little by little, my man. Some of the humour is NOT PG. It's not excessive. Some... sexually themed gags at one point. Again, we are adults here, I wouldn't say it's such a big deal. Plus, it deals with murder and such, so I would say, be mindful of that if you are a child or very sensitive of it. Some of the violent scenes involve descriptions of the main character actually living through being harm done to him. You can feel the story being influenced by Jim Butcher. That's a fact. Then again, he does this kind of a story super well. I am not going to blame a man for being influenced by his dad when he is pretty much a force in a certain subgenre. Plus, I would be a gigantic hypocrite if I did, while not moaning about the same at [a:Benedict Jacka 849723 Benedict Jacka https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1325965585p2/849723.jpg] or [a:Stephen Blackmoore 4449940 Stephen Blackmoore https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1556239891p2/4449940.jpg]. Now I want to read more, both by James J. Butcher and in the urban fantasy/detective topic. Which I take as a win. This one is a funny, action-packed, exciting, well-done first book and the moment book 2 comes, I am reading it. I would say, it's a pretty good pick both for people who are just getting into it and also people who are already familiar with the subgenre. Solid ass book all around.