The Unorthodox Chronicles is a planned series of Urban Fantasy novels by author James J. Butcher. The first book in the series, Dead Man's Hand was released October of 2022.
On the streets of Boston, the world is divided into the ordinary Usuals, and the paranormal Unorthodox. And in the Department of Unorthodox Affairs, the Auditors are the magical elite, government-sanctioned witches with spells at their command and all the power and prestige that comes with it. Grimshaw Griswald Grimbsy is not one of those witches.
After flunking out of the Auditor training program and being dismissed as “not Department material,” Grimsby tried to resign himself to life as a mediocre witch. But he can’t help hoping he’ll somehow, someway, get another chance to prove his skill. That opportunity comes with a price when his former mentor, aka the most dangerous witch alive, is murdered down the street from where he works, and Grimsby is the Auditors’ number one suspect.
Proving his innocence will require more than a little legwork, and after forming a strange alliance with the retired legend known as the Huntsman and a mysterious being from Elsewhere, Grimsby is abruptly thrown into a life of adventure, whether he wants it or not. Now all he has to do is find the real killer, avoid the Auditors on his trail, and most importantly, stay alive.
The books in the series are:
- Dead Man's Hand (2022)
- Long Past Dues (2023)
Provides examples of:
- Alliterative Name: Grimsby's full name is Grimshaw Griswald Grimsby.
- All-Loving Hero: In the second book, Grimsby is beginning to develop this reputation among the Unorthodox of Boston. Typically, Auditors focus on neutralizing threats as securely and permanently as possible, which means that a lot of innocent (but unlucky) people get hurt. Grimsby's focus is on helping people and minimizing the loss of life, even with people who want to hurt him. In Long Past Dues, he prevents the Jerkass, but ultimately-not-evil Sam Goode, from being killed by the Department when Sam loses control of his Therian shift. He helps Wudge steal a fragment of a magic door, and then helps Wudge again when the person they robbed wants revenge. He saves Mansgraf's cat familiar from the fire-breathing serpent, prevents Mayflower from killing Hives, Lump, and Echidna (even though the three would have no compunctions about killing him, even before their enthrallment), and then allows an enthralled Hives to kick his ass in order to break the mind control enchantment on him. His actions don't go unnoticed, with Mother Frost acknowledging his kindness and rewarding him for it, and Mayflower gaining a new respect for Grimsby's ability and compassion.
- An Ice Person: Mother Frost and her assistant, Mara. Mother Frost is the head of a powerful, literally-underground criminal magical society, and her entire domain is full of icy tunnels and cold magic. Mara is usually a small doll, but when she's woken up, she creates a human-sized body of ice with her doll in place of a heart.
- Body Snatcher: The Strygga of the second book conducted a ritual decades ago to try and steal the Impetus of a little girl. The ritual succeeded, though not the way she had initially planned, and the result is that her consciousness has been living dormant inside of the young witch the entire time, only recently breaking loose.
- The Bully: Wilson Hives grows up with Grimsby (and Rayne) in the same Auditor training program, outlasting all of their fellows until they were the last three standing. Despite how well they know each other, Hives hates Grimsby and takes every opportunity to verbally and physically abuse him, even after they are adults and Hives has become a successful Auditor. Hating on Grimsby is so ingrained into Hive's personality that when he becomes a mindless thrall enslaved to another witch, Grimsby's I Know Youre In There Somewhere fight consists of letting Hives whale on him to remind him of his identity.
- Bullying a Dragon: Grimsby may not be the best witch, but he's still a witch. A spoiled ten-year-old at the food joint where he works steals his glasses, the only things protecting him from the monsters living in Elsewhere, and during his blind panic to retrieve them, Grimsby's magic goes out of control, setting himself on fire and causing the dummies he'd enchanted around the restaurant to attack the boy.
- Chekhov's Skill: One of the few spells Grimsby can do is one he made up: Chute. It opens a small portal to somewhere even he doesn't know, probably in the Elsewhere, and he uses it to throw away garbage and save money on trash services. At the end of the first novel, he uses it to send the Hand away so that nobody from the Department can use it.
- Cursed with Awesome: In Long Past Dues, Grimsby gets cursed by an iron nail that sticks to him, no matter what he does. While he isn't certain of the specific nature of the curse, it does change the few spells he can reliably do into roughly the opposite of their normal function. "Bind" winds up shoving things apart, "Chute" fires whatever material he was trying to get rid of back at him instead of magicking it away, and "Torque" slows down entropy in an area while also absorbing enough delayed force to explode (if Grimsby times it right). While these aren't the usual applications of his magic, Grimsby notes that they are far more useful in offensive situations than his usual repertoire, to the point that he worries if using the cursed-altered version of Torque to explode a tree and pass his Department Assessment will get him fired for cheating.
- Decoy Protagonist: The first book opens with Mayflower finding out about Mansgraf's death, deciphering the coded message she left behind, and vowing to fulfill her last request and take revenge on who killed her. The remainder of the novel, save for one or two brief chapters from Mayflower's point of view, follows Grimsby.
- The Dreaded: Leslie Mayflower, also known as "The Huntsman" is a highly feared monster hunter. Even other witches are nervous around him— as they should be.
- Fantastic Racism:
- Despite magic being an open and established fact, many of the Usuals have a poor opinion of witches, and the patrons of Magic Donald's Food Kingdom are especially cruel to Grimsby.
- In Long Past Dues we are informed of an old magic mafia who hated humanity and thought the different magic beings ought to be the ones doing the subjugating.
- Familiar: Familiars aren't regular animals, but machines roughly shaped like animals with an enchanted animal skull animating them. The skull is present at the peaceful deaths of numerous animals, and the spirits pass through the skull before moving on to the afterlife. The result is that the numerous spirits "wear away" the enchantments of the skull, so that when it is animated, it has a generic "impression," animal-like pseudo-spirit without any actual individuality or consciousness. When the subject of doing this to a human comes up, Grimsby is horrified; because human minds and spirits are so complex, the result wouldn't be a smoothed-out impression of a human, but the ragged and agonized shreds of a person's spirit— especially if it was a person who died unnaturally. So of course the villain has created a couple dozen of them.
- Gender-Blender Name: Leslie Mayflower. While Leslie was archaically a man's name, it's usually used for women in the modern day. Doesn't stop Les from being the most feared monster killer in the series.
- Grand Theft Me: Janice, the not-so-dead culprit of a closed case of Mayflower's is performing a ritual to take over Rayne's body.
- "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: In Long Past Dues, we learn the main way to free a thrall from mind-control is to remind them who they are. Unfortunately for Grimsby, the thrall he's fighting is Wilson Hives, his long-time rival and bully, and the best way to free him is to let him beat Grimsby up, just like old times.
- Inept Mage: Grimsby failed the tests to get join the Department (due in no small part to the Power Incontinence caused by his burn scars) and he knows only a three spells that he can work reliably. Part of the issue he has in the beginning of the book is that nobody will hire him; anyone who wants a witch will hire a better witch, and everyone else will hire a normal person. In the words of Mansgraf, he's:Mediocre witch. Decent person. Not Department material
- Leave No Witnesses: Mayflower wonders why Department leader, Peters wouldn't file reports that an agent of the department has been arrested for murder; as he's bound to know that Mayflower and Grimsby would ask questions once they noticed that nothing was being done with the case. Then he realizes that neither him nor Grimsby are intended to live long enough to notice, just as a familiar tries to sneak up and take his head off.
- Lovable Coward: Grimsby wants to be brave, but spends a significant amount of the novel terrified out of his mind and resisting the urge to go hide in a hole somewhere. Much of his character development entails him learning to overcome —or at least function around— his fear in dangerous situations.
- Magic Eater: A strygga is a witch who has consumed the magical Impetus of another, usually at the time of their victim's death. The act is likened to stealing someone's soul.
- Mandatory Unretirement: Grieves has been pushing for Mayflower to come out of retirement for a while. He gets his way in the end. In the end he makes Mayflower returning a condition for hiring Grimsby
- Manipulative Bastard: Damien Grieves suspected his boss is responsible for Mansgraf's death, so he brought in someone outside the Department hierarchy.
- By the end Mayflower is convinced Grimsby deserves a place in the Department. Grieves refuses unless The Huntsman return to duty as part of the deal.
- Morality Pet: Grimsby to Mayflower in the first book. For much of the first novel (after he decides not to kill Grimsby), Mayflower sees Grimsby as a weak idiot who needs protecting.
- Morality Chain: Grimsby to Mayflower in the second book. Mayflower begins the novel questioning if the good he's done as the Huntsman outweighs the sheer number of lives he's taken. When he chooses to team up with Grimsby again, he winds up backing Grimsby up on plans that are risky and highly impractical, but have the chance of saving innocent lives, unable to stop him or let him try it alone, realizing that Grimsby is the moral compass he'd been needing.“You’re the most stubborn conscience I’ve ever had.”
- Our Dragons Are Different: A "serpent" powerful enough to frighten Mother Frost takes up residence in Mansgraf's old lair. The creature is described to have claws, but no wings, it can breathe fire, and has an immunity to magic. While it's never described explicitly as a dragon, it physically fits the description of a Lindwurm.
- Our Werebeasts Are Different: Werewolves exist, and they have some degree of control over their shift and actions while they're shifted. Other werebeasts, called "Therians," do not have control while shifted, and don't control what they turn into. Usually, rather than becoming a specific creature (which requires a degree of control), they turn into an enormous mishmash of different animals. There is a legal mandate that Therians spend each full moon in holding cells at the "Asylum" for the safety of themselves and others. While both Grimsby and the population at large believe Therians can only shift during the full moon, Mayflower informs him that only most of them only shift during the full moon, and that some can trigger the change at any time.
- Power Incontinence: Grimsby struggles with magic due to the scars all over his left side. Whenever he tries to perform magic, the scars spark and hurt, and if he doesn't actively try to steer his own magic away from them, they can burst into flame.
- Primal Fear: Due to a house fire in his childhood that killed his family and left him with severe burn scars, Grimsby is terrified of fire. This is especially bad as the burn scars on his arm and side tend to catch fire when he loses control of his magic.
- Retired Badass: Mayflower is as hard-boiled as a Usual can be. He's "The Huntsman," a notorious Mage Killer with a long and storied career. He only comes out of retirement in the first novel to avenge the death of his former partner.
- Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: Grimsby is the Sensitive Man: Though he gets better as the series progresses, he's generally more prone to panic in the face of danger, he is more emotional than Mayflower, and he's less combatant. On the positive side, he's also far more compassionate that Mayflower and most other Auditors, and he's concerned with helping others and saving lives, as opposed to the usual Auditor stance of ensuring people follow the law. Mayflower is the hard-boiled, gruff, tough guy who, for most of his career, shot first and asked questions never. While Grimsby's character development comes from learning to handle his fear, Mayflower's comes from realizing that his old methods may not have been the right call, and that he's learning from Grimsby's drive to help others as opposed to neutralize threats.
- Suck E. Cheese's: Mighty Magic Donald's Food Kingdom. The name is partly pun on McDonald's, and the restaurant itself seems to be a mix between a Medieval Times and Chuck E. Cheese,
- They Walk Among Us: There is no Masquerade, and magical beings and people live among the non-magical citizenry, albeit heavily regulated.
- True Sight: All witches have the ability to see into Elsewhere, and so far none of them have the ability to turn it off. Witches are must wear masks to filter out the Sight and protect themselves from drawing attention of the monsters who live in Elsewhere. Sometimes the masks are literal (as with the uniform of the Department), but sometimes not; Grimsby's mask is a pair of normal looking glasses, and Department agents who want to be inconspicuous use sunglasses.
- We Can Rule Together:
- The villain of Dead Man's Hand offers a job Grimsby in exchange for the MacGuffin, with the reason being that they don't want to kill any more witches, and that Grimsby's impressed them with his quick thinking. Though whether or not they're telling the truth is up for debate.
- The Strygga in Long Past Dues reveals that she's been watching Grimsby for years through Rayne's eyes, and while every other witch in the world seems to have written him off, she can sense strong potential inide him and would like him to join her willingly.
