I've said it before, but it's worth repeating. If you love Jim Butcher's “Harry Dresden” series, then you need to check out Patrick Donovan's books. His latest novel, The Ledberg Runestone, starts a new series about Jonah Heywood, a shaman in North Carolina who gets in way over his head.

Jonah is a two-legged train wreck. While at one time, he tried to use his magic to go after big bads in his home city of Asheville, a particularly bad episode has left him with a limp and when he's not conning people out of their money by performing exorcisms and other magical fakery, he's stilling from the homes of his victims. Topping that off, he's a raging alcoholic. For all of Jonah's loathsome qualities, it's difficult not to like him, because Patrick writes Jonah with such an honest and often irreverently funny voice, that his more noble qualities shine through.

Overall, the story contains a lot of great characters, and while they don't all get a lot of time to shine, there's certainly the promise they'll each have important roles to play in the future novels.

The story doesn't lean too heavily on the mystical elements of the world. Many of Jonah's problems are very much mundane, but not without high stakes. He's in debt to a pair of thugs who have the local cops in their back pocket. The magic gets a stronger focus in the latter third of the novel. Many of the best moments come from seeing all the magical things that are hidden within an otherwise modern, everyday setting.