I heard the mailman approach my office door, half an hour earlier than usual. He didn’t sound right. His footsteps fell more heavily, jauntily, and he whistled. A new guy. He whistled his way to my office door, then fell silent for a moment. Then he laughed.
Then he knocked.
This is the opening two paragraphs of the novel. The second paragraph being just one single line, of course. Anyone picking the book up at random with absolutely no idea of its plot—or, more importantly, its genre—could easily confuse it with a standard private eye novel along the lines of something by Chandler or Hammett. Or, more likely, by a crime writer heavily influence by those heavyweights. Going by the title, it would be very easy to assume this is the opening to not just a private detective novel, but a noir one at that set in World War II-era 1940’s. Everything is there: the terseness of the prose, the no-nonsense rhythm and cadence of the structure. Those who settle in for something like Farewell, My Lovely are going to very quickly find they are in for quite a surprise. Or even a disappointment, depending on how much they invested in that hope.
Paranoid? Probably. But just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face.
In case one hasn’t figured out that this is not your standard first-person narrative about a private detective dealing with dames dancing on a pair of pins, this should do the trick. Of course, by this final paragraph of first chapter, one has learned that Mr. Dresden can be found in the Yellow Pages under “Wizards” and the story is taking place in the post-Challenger explosion world of 21st century America where crack babies are still a thing.
Muscle, not brains, that was Victor Shadowman. I had to keep that in mind.
Harry Dresden, as indicated, is the narrator of the novel. The Wizard who fulfills the traditional role of the private detective. But what is a private detective novel without a villain? Even if the detective is a Wizard? And, of course, what would a villain in such a novel be if he weren’t a Warlock. Victor Shadowman is the villain because, of course, with a name like that he would have to be the villain or something close anyway, right? Victor Shadowman may seem an unlikely name for a villain, but keep in mind that two of antagonists of The Maltese Falcon are named, respectively, Joel Cairo and Casper Gutman. And Gutman is fat. So, even though Shadowman is almost criminally cool, it is very much in keeping with traditional structural elements of the conventional private eye mystery.
