Scumbase

Morley's place was a tomb.  Nobody there but a couple of the kingpin's men.  Even Puddle was gone, home or wherever.  That gave me pause to reflect.  I don' t often think of guys like Puddle, or Crask and Sadler, in human terms.  Home. Hell.  The guy might have a family, kids, who knew what all.  I'd never considered it.  He'd always been just another bonebreaker. 


Not that I wanted him to ask me over for dinner, to meet the missus and little bonebreakers coming up.  I was just in one of those moods where I start wondering about people.  Where they came from, what they did when I wasn't looking, like that.  Probably got started when Chodo told me about his girlfriend.


It isn't a mood I enjoy.  It gets me thinking about myself, my own lack of place and depth in the scheme.  No family.  Hardly any friends, and them I don't know that well.  What I don't know about Morely or Saucerhead could fill books, probably.   They don't know me any better, either.  Part of being a rough, tough, he-man type, I suppose.  On stage all the time, hiding carefully. 


I have plenty of acquaintances.  Hundreds.  We're all tied together in a net of favors done and owed, all of us keeping tabs on the balance, sometimes thinking in it friendship when it isn't anything but a shadow of the obsession that drives Chodo Contague.

Excerpt from Dread Brass Shadows

Take a late-20ish ex-marine who's seen a lot of ugly war and dirty deeds.  Saddle him with a 1000 year old partner who isn't exactly alive and set him up in a detective business run out of a house/office in a not so upstanding area of town.  Cue a fussy housekeeper, a handful of fiery redheaded ladies for which he has an avowed weakness, and conjure up barrel or two of his favorite beverage, Weider's beer and a dozen or so whodunnit tales.

You'd get a rollicking good detective series, like the kind that came out of the 30s 'golden age of detective fiction' and starred private eyes like Philip Marlowe or Hercule Poirot.

However,  author Glen Cook doesn't stop there.  He breaks the codified rules of detectives fiction and the result will leave you chuckling as you shadow our man about town.   Mama Garrett's favorite boy just happens to live in Tun Faire, a city full of ogres, dwarves, fairies, ratmen and henchmen.  There are too many crime bosses who live on the outskirts of town, sorcerers who live up on the hill and Gods who need worshippers   

Despite the excerpt above, Garrett does have friends. Or at least folks who appreciate the smart mouth that Garret sports.  Ones that may even help him get out of whatever current trouble he's in, Gods, sorcerers and crime bosses notwithstanding.

• 1 Sweet Silver Blues (1987)
• 2 Bitter Gold Hearts (1988)
• 3 Cold Copper Tears (1988)
• 4 Old Tin Sorrows (1989)
• 5 Dread Brass Shadows (1990)
• 6 Red Iron Nights (1991)
• 7 Deadly Quicksilver Lies (1994)
• 8 Petty Pewter Gods (1995)
• 9 Faded Steel Heat (1999)
• 10 Angry Lead Skies (2002)
• 11 Whispering Nickel Idols (2005)
• 12 Cruel Zinc Melodies (2008)
• 13 Gilded Latten Bones (2010)

I'm a sucker for a good dectective novel if it also includes fantasy elements.  Not many writers out there can pull it off, but Glen Cook has it down cold.  Enjoy!