Ok, let’s get this out of the way now. James Butcher is the son of Jim Butcher, who wrote the Dresden Files among other things. And when your famous dad writes an urban fantasy book about wizards and you write an urban fantasy book about wizards, there’s going to be comparisons.

Luckily for James, those comparisons come up favourably. Don’t get me wrong, I like the Dresden Files but honestly the first two aren’t that great. Storm Front is fine but not what I’d call inspired. Honestly, after reading it I had no desire to read the rest of the series and it was only a kind of fluke that I did.

Dead Man’s Hand, however, has a lot of flare that Storm Front lacked. The main character is more interesting, initially. Whereas Dresden was a wizard PI, which is cool but also a little vague, Grimsby tried to become a wizard detective, failed, and is now working in a children’s fun palace and hating it. The other main character, Mayflower, is the old, grizzled cop of the duo and he’s retired after seeing way too much. But one last death drags him back in.

It’s this interaction between the two leads that really drives the book. Grimsby is a little weak as a character on his own and tends to flip between enthusiasm and dread. Whereas Mayflower has determination you could bend a steel bar around. The two cover for each other’s flaws as characters a lot.

The plot itself is fine and fairly direct. They have to find a maguffin and that takes them to various places. The world is nicely realised, though one Grimsby is oddly unaware of. The magic is also nicely restrained. While Dresden has a bunch of spells that he can throw out on a moment’s notice, Grimsby has two but he has to use them in inventive ways. I’m always a big fan of characters who has restrictions put on them and I liked this one.

All in all it was a decent novel and, though a bit wobbly in places, its in ways that are forgivable in a first novel. It definitely left me more enthusiastic to keep reading than Storm Front and I think that’s the highest compliment I can offer.