I received a review copy of Murach's SQL Server 2008 For Developers a couple months back and just finished up looking through it. In general I've always liked the style of the Murach books; short lessons that flow about as logically as you can do it when it often seems like you need to know it all to get anything done! I think it hits it's target, it's for the developer who needs to know how to things in SQL Server. The focus is on SQL more so than .Net code, though there are places where it's used in the book (CLR based stuff, and also filestream operations), but the average non-coding DBA would still find the book approachable. The only fault I could find was no coverage of SQL injection and how to reduce that risk by parameterizing (using either sp_executesql or by explicitly adding parameters in ADO.Net) - something that I think is critical to be covered when teaching SQL to developers.

Perfect for someone who is new to SQL queries as well as SQL Server, and not bad at all for those who have done database work on those other databases and are trying to translate concepts to SQL Server.