Jim Butcher has opted to expand his Dresden Files series to be more than just traditional text and a series on the SciFi Network. Now, it is going to be a comic book. This volume collects together a number of issues that present a case that Dresden took just before the first book Butcher wrote with him in it. The case is set in a Chicago zoo. The police have been brought in to look into the murder of an employee near the ape house.

All the evidence would seem to indicate that the man was killed by one of the apes. Lt Karrin Murphy, who is in charge of the department's Special Investigations division, thinks that explanation doesn't quite fit the evidence. She calls in Dresden, a local wizard who often serves as a consultant for her division, which specializes in cases tied to the occult.

With pressure coming from city hall, Murphy can only afford to give Dresden 24 hours to sort out what is going on and get down to the truth. Fortunately, our humorous and sarcastic hero quickly gets down to business by talking to various employees at the zoo, giving him insight into some interesting politics that are going down in the zoo's hierarchy as well as the fact that many of the animals in the zoo are being possessed to commit gruesome crimes in the name of an ancient power.

The book definitely had everything I like about the series in it, and it is wonderfully illustrated. My one complaint is that the case was not incredibly interesting since it is resolved so quickly. I did think it is an interesting choice to serve as an introductory volume in graphic novel version of the series. The next volume is supposed to present the first narrative book in a graphic format.

I liked that this was a fresh story. I am not sure I will find this as interesting as the series heads toward just re-presenting existing tales. I would rather it focus on new and original tales.