It was fate that led me to the Alex Verus Novels by Benedict Jacka

 The first of the Alex Verus novels, Fated, brings an interesting character to light.  Those fond of the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher will appreciate Alex's wit and disarming banter.  We are introduced to someone who never wanted to be a hero - who just wanted to be left alone to pick up the pieces of a troubled past and try to have some semblance of a normal life.  Alex tries to forget about his former Master, the Dark Mage who trained him and then enslaved him, by running a shop of arcane merchandise in London.  Most of his patrons are your average, ordinary person with no magical abilities.  Thus, Alex keeps himself off the radar of the Council.  After all, they'd done nothing to protect him when they learned what his former Master had done to him and his fellow apprentices - what could Alex possibly want to do with them now?

Of course, his choice in the matter changes when suddenly he's the only diviner left in England and the clock is ticking to figure out how to retrieve a dangerous artifact that would surely grant the wielder enough power to turn the fates of all mages the world over.  Alex just wants to be left alone to live his life.  But in order to do that, he has to ensure that the artifact doesn't fall into the hands of the dark mages who've kidnapped him and threatened one of his closest friends.

Being able to see into the future should be a help.  But people are unpredictable, and Alex's only advantage is his determination to see things through.  He will not run from the danger that swirls around him at every turn.  He's spent 10 years living on the outskirts of the magical community.  But he's never run from a fight, and he's not going to start now.  He weighs the probabilities and tracks down the courses of action that allow him to get his friends to safety, and thus creates a new future for himself - one that he would never have predicted.

Alex Verus is the kind of guy to let you tell the same story over and over again, even though he figured out the punch line before you told it to him the first time.  And he's the kind of guy who'd run into a burning building to rescue a team of telemarketers.  He's also the kind of guy to throw assassins off roofs and not think twice about it.  Basically - he's the kind of guy you'd be lucky to have as a friend.  I'm looking forward to getting to know Alex more as the series continues.

Tyler Whitesides tried with "Janitors" but something didn't hit the mark.

I really tried to like this book.  I wanted to like Spencer.  He seemed like a good kid.  He cares about his family (even if he gets frustrated with his mother for being a little absentminded, and frustrated with his siblings for being messy) and he wishes he had the guts to stand up to bullies.  But he just doesn't strike me as the hero-in-waiting kind of character.  There's something missing in the introduction to the character that make all that he chooses to do seem realistic for him.  He just doesn't seem to have it in him to do what is written.


It doesn't help that the story tends to jump from point C to point L, filling in the gaps with half a paragraph of exposition.  I don't want to hear about what happened after the fact - I want to see it happening while it's happening.  The first time this is really noticeable, Spencer and his plucky side-kick, Daisy, are trapped in a bathroom stall of an inescapable bathroom with the school bully on the other side of the door, threatening to do all kinds of harm to them, and the only thing they have with which to defend themselves is a plastic babydoll.  Jump to later that day and find out that they were stuck in the stall for half an hour before they were rescued by the supposed good guys.  We never find out what happened in that half hour, though.  We figure the bully, Dez, never made it into the stall, but we don't know how scared Spencer and Daisy became, or if they were injured at all - if they grew closer as allies or started bickering because of their predicament.  These are important things to see in a story.  You need to know how your heroes act in tense situations early in the story so that you can see them surviving the dangers you know are ahead.


I have to take issue with the main premise of the story - the Toxites feeding on the brain waves of children while they are learning.  Seriously?  That's the evil monster that Spencer and the janitors have to face?  They don't cause physical damage, they just make you sleepy and make it harder to learn.  This does not strike fear into the heart of the reader.  I'm sorry, it just doesn't.  I mean, one of the monsters is referred to as a dust gofer.  How is that supposed to be scary?  It does make sense that it's the kind of monster Spencer would particularly dislike, as he is shown to be a person who prefers a tidy environment.  A monster made out of dust would be something of a menace to a neat-freak like Spencer.  However, it is hardly worth pulling out the big guns for - maybe just a big vacuum (though the weapon of choice of the janitors seems to be mops, not vacuums).


It's also difficult to believe that Spencer was so easily duped by the actual bad guys (who of course portrayed themselves as the good guys when they first met Spencer).  We started the book seeing how Dez would pick on Daisy (known for her gullibility) and yet Spencer just instantly went along with the word of an adult who seemed to want to get rid of the little monsters.  He hardly questioned the story Hadley told him at all, and he never wondered why Hadley was so quick to recruit Spencer into the fight.  Surely the government wouldn't see fit to hire 12-year-olds on a regular basis.  This thought may have given him a moment's pause, but nothing more.  He was quick to jump into the fray - which still feels like it's out of character for him.  Though we've only known Spencer for a few chapters at this point, the impression created in the first couple pages are that he is just not the kind to get his hands dirty and fix things himself.  He stands back and lets the world pass him by, only going so far as to keep his own little bubble clean and orderly.  He doesn't even bother trying to spread that sense of order throughout his own home (which he refuses to think of as his home because the house actually belongs to his aunt, but whatever).  He keeps his personal room tidy and that's it.  He doesn't even seem all that protective of his younger siblings.


I can't help but wonder if the character could have been more believable if written a little differently.  Maybe even the flimsy premise could have been exciting if the right words had been found.  Though there weren't any notable flaws in Tyler Whitesides' particular style, I just don't think he was the right writer for this story.  I might be willing to give the author another chance with a different set of characters, but I would not be interested in continuing the "Janitors" storyline any further.

Jim Butcher's first published work, "Storm Front," is an invitation to enjoy all this author has to write.

Meet Harry Dresden, Wizard.  He is a sarcastic, snappy, angry, lonely, kind young man who honestly wants to help people.  Living in Chicago, a city known for its corruption (and not just of the human origin) means that there's always someone around for Harry to help.


In "Storm Front," Harry finds himself helping the Chicago police, and sassy Special Investigations Detective Karrin Murphy, on a murder case involving black magic.  But the detectives aren't the only ones who want this case solved.  Local mob boss, Gentleman Johnny Marcone, has a vested interest in the assailant as well, as the victims were on his payroll.  But Harry is really put under pressure to find the bad guy when the Wardens from the White Council of Wizards start thinking that Harry might be the one behind the attack.


You see, it turns out that Harry doesn't have the cleanest record with the Wardens.  In fact, he's under something known as the Doom of Damocles.  Meaning, if he slips up one time - breaks even the tiniest of Wizard laws - he'll be executed without trial, and Warden Morgan will be all too happy to carry out that sentence.


With the police, mob, and a crying damsel-in-distress begging for justice, and the Wardens sharpening their swords, Harry has to find the Black Mage quick, but he'll do it with a lot of sass and only causing damage to two buildings in the process.


Harry's level of sass is near astronomical, but we find we like that about him.  He has a way of putting people at ease when they are faced with gore and pain, and he does it by making them laugh.  He is often the butt of his own jokes, and we learn that his self-deprecating remarks stem from a painful (physically and emotionally) childhood, but that is also where his unending drive to help others was born as well.  He may sass at Warden Morgan, but he won't back down from a fight when there are lives on the line.


The introduction to Harry Dresden, Wizard, is a promising start to a new series.