All in all, a brilliant piece of debut work. 
 It is this reviewer's opinion that Jim Butcher has well earned the title: Undisputed Father of Urban Fantasy. Or at the very least, of paranormal noir. (This, by the way, is coming from someone who doesn't especially care for detective stories outside of Sherlock, and who has become jaded by a lack of originality in the paranormal genre.) 
 Butcher's prose is pithy, clever, and almost effortless to read. Bits of wit, wisdom, and observation are woven into an oddly profound thread--putting this particular tapestry of words far ahead of most in its genre. I enjoyed nearly everything about his dauntless pacing and straight-forward style. Even his tendency to end chapters with sarcastic, rhetorical questions. 
 Harry Dresden is an immediately endearing, fully fleshed-out character. A somewhat bumbling cynic of a wizard, unable to shake his baser idealism. His inevitable brooding only adds to his unique charm. One can more honestly root for a hero who acknowledges that they don't really qualify as a "good person," but are nevertheless fighting the temptation to embrace their tainted state as their identity. Harry's inner struggles are, at times, nearly as interesting as his wild menagerie of external conflicts. 
 My only minor complaints would be that there wasn't nearly enough Bob, and that I wasn't quite able to connect to any of the female characters (unless you count the brothel mistress vampire...which I'm still not sure counts as a person. >.>) Officer Murphy struck me as particularly grating, and possibly too obtuse for me to invest any care into. But perhaps that's a character who will develop as the series goes along. I certainly intend to find out. :) 
 Favorite quote: 
 "Paranoid? Probably. But just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face." - Harry Dresden