If you follow Green Man Review, you'll know that I've reviewed a lot of Glen Cook -- or his heroic fantasy series, at least. This is one from Epinions that I didn't review there, and it's not heroic fantasy.
Garrett, P.I. possibly rivals Glen Cook's The Black Company as his most popular series. I can tell because, Sweet Silver Blues, the first book, has been showing up in bookstores again. (I mean, places where they sell new books.)
This is the book in which we are introduced to Garrett, a down at the heels private eye with an attitude problem, and the dazzling city of TunFaire, along with some of the ongoing characters in the story: Morley Dotes, the half-breed dark elf, who is as fast and nasty as they come; the delectable Tinnie Tate, a diminutive package of sharp-edged redhead; Saucerhead Tharpe, a man of great integrity if not such great intelligence; Playmate, one of the rare honest citizens of the city; and, certainly not least, the Dead Man, Garrett's silent partner.
Denny Tate, one of Garrett's old army buddies (not really -- their acquaintance began after their military service, but that description will do as well as any) has died, and the family wants Garrett to find the main beneficiary of Denny's will. She is, as it turns out, a woman with whom Garrett himself had been involved, who lives in the Cantard, where the war against the Venageti has been happening and which is not a place Garrett wants to have any new memories of. As it happens, the time seems right for Morley to accompany him (a little matter of some overdue . . . bills), and the Tates make the money right for Garrett to consider it. When they set out, Tinnie and her cousin Rose offer some complications; there's also a mysterious yacht that paces them down the river, first to Leifmold and then to Full Harbor, the main port of the Cantard. They somehow arrive safely, only to confront a series of puzzles.
Of course, it goes downhill from there.
The fantasy detective story is one that goes way back. The modern versions start, perhaps, with Randall Garrett's Lord D'Arcy stories, and continue through Steven Brust's Taltos Cycle, Tanya Huff's Blood series, and Jim Butcher's Dresden Files, among others. Cook plays it for comedy, if you can imagine such a thing. The series overall is almost classic Rex Stout, with Garrett playing the long-suffering Archie Goodwin and the Dead Man as the peremptory Nero Wolfe. The characters are among the more bizarre in fantasy, the dialogue is sharp and earthy, the narrative fast and fluent, and the puzzles are pretty much impenetrable.
An interesting part of Sweet Silver Blues is what Cook has done with some of the regulation denizens of fantasy universes: unicorns are pack hunters using trained dogs to help them find prey, and the vampires are really repulsive and really scary. Of the Other Races, as Cook christens them, there has been (and probably continues to be) a great deal of intermixing -- hence the Tates, who have faery in their blood, and Morley Dotes and his henchmen, Doris, Marsha, and Dojango Roze (triplets with different mothers), distantly related to Morley -- and also to trolls and it's hard to know what else.
I enjoyed it immensely (full disclosure: although I can't really consider myself a "fan" of any writer, Cook comes close). The narrative flow is smoother than some of his other books (most noticeably The Instrumentalities of the Night and some of the Black Company books) and very tight, which I always appreciate. There is a little bit of a sense of getting a handle on the universe in this one, but only just barely. By a second reading (and it does hold up that well), you will swear you imagined it.
In-group thing: Fans of Glen Cook will have noticed his tendency to work the titles of his previous books into later ones -- not set off as titles, but just as a normal part of the narrative. This one's no different -- keep an eye out for references to the Dread Empire series.
(Ace, 1990)
This is the book in which we are introduced to Garrett, a down at the heels private eye with an attitude problem, and the dazzling city of TunFaire, along with some of the ongoing characters in the story: Morley Dotes, the half-breed dark elf, who is as fast and nasty as they come; the delectable Tinnie Tate, a diminutive package of sharp-edged redhead; Saucerhead Tharpe, a man of great integrity if not such great intelligence; Playmate, one of the rare honest citizens of the city; and, certainly not least, the Dead Man, Garrett's silent partner.
Denny Tate, one of Garrett's old army buddies (not really -- their acquaintance began after their military service, but that description will do as well as any) has died, and the family wants Garrett to find the main beneficiary of Denny's will. She is, as it turns out, a woman with whom Garrett himself had been involved, who lives in the Cantard, where the war against the Venageti has been happening and which is not a place Garrett wants to have any new memories of. As it happens, the time seems right for Morley to accompany him (a little matter of some overdue . . . bills), and the Tates make the money right for Garrett to consider it. When they set out, Tinnie and her cousin Rose offer some complications; there's also a mysterious yacht that paces them down the river, first to Leifmold and then to Full Harbor, the main port of the Cantard. They somehow arrive safely, only to confront a series of puzzles.
Of course, it goes downhill from there.
The fantasy detective story is one that goes way back. The modern versions start, perhaps, with Randall Garrett's Lord D'Arcy stories, and continue through Steven Brust's Taltos Cycle, Tanya Huff's Blood series, and Jim Butcher's Dresden Files, among others. Cook plays it for comedy, if you can imagine such a thing. The series overall is almost classic Rex Stout, with Garrett playing the long-suffering Archie Goodwin and the Dead Man as the peremptory Nero Wolfe. The characters are among the more bizarre in fantasy, the dialogue is sharp and earthy, the narrative fast and fluent, and the puzzles are pretty much impenetrable.
An interesting part of Sweet Silver Blues is what Cook has done with some of the regulation denizens of fantasy universes: unicorns are pack hunters using trained dogs to help them find prey, and the vampires are really repulsive and really scary. Of the Other Races, as Cook christens them, there has been (and probably continues to be) a great deal of intermixing -- hence the Tates, who have faery in their blood, and Morley Dotes and his henchmen, Doris, Marsha, and Dojango Roze (triplets with different mothers), distantly related to Morley -- and also to trolls and it's hard to know what else.
I enjoyed it immensely (full disclosure: although I can't really consider myself a "fan" of any writer, Cook comes close). The narrative flow is smoother than some of his other books (most noticeably The Instrumentalities of the Night and some of the Black Company books) and very tight, which I always appreciate. There is a little bit of a sense of getting a handle on the universe in this one, but only just barely. By a second reading (and it does hold up that well), you will swear you imagined it.
In-group thing: Fans of Glen Cook will have noticed his tendency to work the titles of his previous books into later ones -- not set off as titles, but just as a normal part of the narrative. This one's no different -- keep an eye out for references to the Dread Empire series.
(Ace, 1990)
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