And a private detective.

Starts off grim and low key (threats are a monster, a suspicious husband, a crime boss with some flunkies), and then the power level of both the protagonists and antagonists increases throughout the years. Police corruption upgraded to FBI, to Wizard Politics. There's always an undercurrent of geeky humor going through it, though.

Instead of a group of teenagers with attitude, the group of friends is more diverse, and they come and go depending on circumstances. So, in one book Harry might be particularly grim, and only have his police-lieutenant buddy hanging out with him. Another book, maybe he'll have a teenaged girl who hired him, or a Russian agnostic paladin, and a giant friendly dog.

My main problem with it is, basically that the first two books are good, while the rest are amazing. So sometimes I'm tempted to say "keep reading, it gets so much better!" The first two are still good, though.



Finally, the audiobooks are done by James Marsters (Spike from Buffy, for those who don't know the name), and he's great.