Damn, man. That's fast. My wife loves the series. I couldn't get into it for some reason. Maybe I'll give it another go this year.
I have to make two trips each 4-6 weeks, each with 24 or more hours of travel (depending on layovers), and spend weeks away from home at a time. I have a lot of time to read.
My friends warned me that it takes a couple books to really pick up. I was turned off a bit by the writing for the first novel. The second was a bit better, but not great. But Butcher's writing does get better throughout the series. He is not a wordsmith like, say, Patrick Rothfuss (Name of the Wind, one of my favorite books of the last 10 years). But the stories are are fun and the character development and supernatural politics are interesting.
Also, I think what helped is that before I read that series, I read a series of gumshoe detective novels written by a friend of mine set in post WW II honolulu. The Dresden books are very much in the style of gumshoe detective novels with many of the same tropes. Hard-boilded detective getting in life and death fights, focus on attractive women, sex scenes, and a mystery. The Dresden Files are that, set in Chicago, based on wizards, fairies, elves, vampires, etc. being real, but hidden from most people.
The fantasy conflicts with the mystery aspects because it is hard to get overly invested into trying to follow and figure out the mystery when that answer is inevitably "magic", but later books build on earlier books so eventually I found myself getting invested in the politics and rules of that world. Despite what I might see as flaws in other books, Butcher pulls it off and it really is like geek crack for me. I have trouble putting down the books once I start reading them. They are a fun, light read that are great for relaxing after a long day's work or on a plane.
