** spoiler alert ** 
 Thieftaker 
 I have a problem. First, not that anybody would care, but I'm an aspiring author. I write spec fiction and had this brilliant idea about a year ago for a story. It was set in Colonial era Boston and was intended to send the reader on this rabbit hole of weirdness as the story's protagonist uncovers upstanding members of the community aren't quite what they seem. 
 So, over the summer I was putting my story through some editing touches and hanging out at Barnes & Noble and I saw this book show up in the new releases. 
 I immediately crapped myself. 
 Same era, same town, same general vibe I was going for in my story, except in this case, done better and with more flare than my own. Dammit, even when I get an original idea, it ends up being not-so original after all. 
 Anyway, it's my own problem, and has nothing to do with this tale. I just wanted a moment to complain about how unfair the universe is. 
 I was really curious about this, for obvious reasons, and then the fine folks and Adventures in Sci-Fi publishing and Tor books were kind enough to select me as a winner in their Thieftaker giveaway. 
 I read it, and reluctantly had to admit that it's pretty darn fun. It has the detective novel feel to it, and could almost have been fit into the Harry Dresden universe. While I didn't find the story perfect, the absolute best thing for me was the characters, all of them. I cared about Ethan, I cared about what he cared about, I loved the dogs he petted every day, his girlfriend, the barkeep at the Tavern. Everyone in this story felt very real. 
 And in the end, it's characters that drive a story, the premise is great, a man coerced into tracking down the muerderer of a young girl by her wealthy father, and a then Ethan is forced to face down so many of the problems he's spend the past few years trying to avoid as a result. 
 That the actual plot did not leave me especially thrilled, or that I scratched my head at the magic system this universe laid out, almost didn't matter. It did matter, but not as much as it would have if I didn't love the characters so much. 
 But do dive into the problems I had with this novel, I did have some issues that I think undermined some of the power of the tale. One, there is a rival set up for Ethan, one who seems to both be irrationally feared by our hero, and appears to be severely overmatched by our hero, and who has a confrontation with said hero about once in every chapter of the book. 
 I mean, the first confrontation was frightening for me, the reader, but by the end I saw this rival as a bit of a joke. I seriously doubt that is what the author was going for. 
 Second, the magic bugged me. Not just bugged me, but seemed to me like something significant was being ignored by everyone involved. How magic works is explained several times in the course of the novel, and I get it. You can power magic by one of three ways (called Conjuring). One is mostly harmless but gives very little power, one can be harmful but is much stronger, and a third method is infinitely stronger than the previous two, but comes at great cost. 
 Sigh... I'm not sure how to talk about this without getting really SPOILER-y about it, so be warned.... SPOILERS ahead: 
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 You can power magic by taking some sort of essence from the air, like leaves or grass, or mist, whatever. You can get it by blood, your own or someone else's, or you can kill someone and use their life to power your spell. It's gets revealed that in order to kill someone to power your spell, you just have to command it to happen. That's it. You say, "I take your life to power my spell" or something like that, in Latin, and whoosh, the subject falls dead immediately. 
 So how come our hero is fighting for his life and is prepared to kill his enemy, and is constantly worried that he can't summon the power necessary to win.... Say, I have an idea. Kill guy number one to power your spell needed to kill guys 2 - 8. Problem solved. I mean, it become painfully obvious that this is how things work. Once that decision is made to take a life then I don't see what the problem is in actually taking the life. 
 Maybe I missed something. I almost wanted to think that the hero has a moral objection to doing that, but again, I don't think that would make sense either. 
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 END SPOILERS 
 All that complaining aside, it was a very good book, honest. If you can get past the redundancy of the confrontations with Ethan's rival, and the poorly understood magic system, and instead focus on the amazing characters of this tale, the you will be impressed. Or should be. 
 I'll be reading the next installment as soon as I can. I get the feeling that if the author can keep producing these, then they will get better and better. I can't wait to read more.