This was an emergency airport buy last month - my holiday read hadn't arrived in time and I was desperate. I started reading with a certain amount of trepidation, because a) I love the Codex Alera, and I was worried I might hate this; b) first person narrator, brrrrr; c) this is the 9th Dresden book, apparently, so I was jumping into the middle of a series; d) in terms of preference, I fall firmly into the sword-and-sorcery bracket of fantasy. So, I wasn't sure about this, like, at all.However. I enjoyed this a lot. A LOT. If Butcher knows a thing, it's how to write dialogue, and there's a lot of it in the book. As always, highly amusing.
Speaking of amusing, I gather from other people's reviews that this book ties together many things from the previous novels, which, it appears, I now don't have to read to catch up on anything. Excellent. I'll just continue with the next ones, instead.
And I will read at least one more, just to see if my general first impression holds; i.e. that the Dresden books are an easy, light-hearted read, with a first-person narrator just self-deprecating enough to make me not hate him.
Regarding first person POV, though, I hope you won't mind me nit-picking for a sec here. Yo, Mr Dresden? When you turn pale? You don't know that. Trust me. Unless you have an epic squint, or you're checking yourself out in a mirror while you're talking, you don't know that your face just leaked colour. Maybe your mouth goes dry or your heart does that hilarious thing where it feels like it's about to drop out your pants, but you cannot see the colour of your face.
/pointless rant
All in all, though, I liked this!