Noir and Fantasy as I read another Garrett, P.I. book

At the moment, I’m reading Dread Brass Shadows, the fifth book in Glen Cook’s Garrett, P.I. series. It’s a fairly quick read so I might actually have it done by the time this blog entry goes up.

I first tried to read the series when Bitter Gold Hearts came out in 1988, thinking it was the first book in the series since the other two books had silver and copper in the titles and gold had to come first, right? (Wrong, by the way. Sweet Silver Blues is the first book)

At the time, the book didn’t make much sense to me. Garrett was a normal guy doing detective work in a kitchen sink fantasy universe. He was tough and clever but he didn’t have any kind of magical or supernatural powers. Heck, at least Lord Darcy had Master Sean O Lochlainn to handle the magic. I couldn’t figure out the draw and the plot was grim, grim, grim.

You see, at the time, I hadn’t really read any hardboiled detective stories. I was more familiar with the Sherlock Holmes puzzle type mysteries, where all the pieces fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. The hardboiled style, where the detective had to sift through motives without any clues and might be an anti-hero as rough as the crooks, that wasn’t something I was familiar with.

About three or four years ago, I decided to give Garrett another chance and read Sweet Silver Blues. By’

[ then, I’d read Hammett and Chandler and Spillane. More importantly, I’d read Rex Stout and John D. McDonald.

This time, everything clicked and I realized that the series was brilliant and I’d just been too dumb to see it.

The Garrett books are, in many ways, an open homage to Stout’s Nero Wolfe stories and McDonald’s Travis McGee books. Both series are important ones to the mystery genre and, more importantly, a whole lot of fun.

For all intents and purposes, Garrett is Travis McGee playing Archie Goodwin’s part to an undead litch playing the part of Nero Wolfe. All in a fantasy kitchen sink. It’s crazy but in a really awesome way.

You don’t need to have read either Nero Wolfe or Travis McGee to appreciate or enjoy Garrett, P.I. But, what you do need to go into Garrett knowing (and which I didn’t the first time) is that it is a mystery first and a fantasy second. Garrett is dressed like Humphrey Bogart on the covers (and never in the actual books :D) and that is honest advertising.

In fact, I sometimes wonder why the series is actually set in a fantasy world, other than grabbing readers like me :P

Well, while magic is generally not part of a puzzle, like the Lord Darcy stories, it is often a good motive. Having a whole bunch of fantasy races lets racism get explored to a whole new level. Being in a fantasy setting lets Cook make a ghost story a real ghost story and explore other horror elements.

But, perhaps most importantly, it lets the stories be set in a world that has had a war going on for generations. All the despair and cynicism that wartime brings ramped up to eleven. Now that is a serious noir feel.

I am not a rabid fan of the series. If I was, I’d have read all the books by now :P But I do know that the books are good reads and fun reads and every time I go back to Garrett’s dark, nasty world, I’ll have a good time.