Side Jobs (Jim Butcher)

I've become a real fan of the Harry Dresden series, so I checked out this collection of short works. It begins with the first-ever Dresden story, written as an exercise for a creative writing class and never before published. Butcher acknowledges that it's not a strong story and didn't deserve publication initially, an opinion I could agree with, but I enjoyed seeing where the story began. It finishes with a novelette that Harry never even appears in, with Murphy and others of Harry's friends dealing with his apparent murder, trying to cope with the kind of evil he usually fights without him. If you like the Dresden series you will like these stories.