15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The return of an old friend, June 11, 2008
This review is from: Cruel Zinc Melodies (Garrett, P.I. #12) (Mass Market Paperback)
I have read all of the Garrett books as well as the Black Company series. Glen Cook (who I am proud to say went to my Alma Mater) is a writer whose character Garrett pops off the page with snarky wit that has always had me laughing and enjoying his thoroughly fun detective tales in the fantastical environment of Tun Faire.
With this being number twelve in the series, reading this novel was like slipping on a comfortable old glove for me. I know the characters, remembering back to the good old days of when each of them were introduced, and enjoying them all.
I was in college in the late eighties when I read my first Garrett book. Now, as I am about to turn forty there is a certain appreciation for a maturing Garrett, alebeit a reluctance on my part to see him resist the urge to stray anymore, resist the urge to get himself into far deeper trouble with the likes of Deal Relway and Westman Block. All the lovely ladies that populated the pages of stories past were like Bond Girls, with their wicked or more tame temptations for the sarcastic ex-marine. Now he is trying to be a one woman man and seems to be a bit more even tempered overall. There is certainly still a zing to the stories but it is slightly tempered by a more thoughtful, less reactionary Garrett.
This specific book has Garrett working to help one of his longtime employers, Max Weider, with his newest venture, a theater being built to showcase the acting skills of his daughter along with Garrett's longtime sweetheart, Tinnie Tate, plus a bevy of other tantalizing young women, each that seem to tempt Garrett one more than the other.
The problem is that the theater appears to be haunted and have an massive infestation of giant bugs.
I will not go into further details because the plot gets pretty complicated from there, with several different smaller and larger mysteries adding up and being resolved throughout the book.
Most of the old characters from previous stories are pulled into this book and that will cause a lot of confusion for someone not familiar with this entire series. It is a story that has a very healthy dose of the Dead Man, which is always a big plus for me. Garrett's partner always adds a lot to each story he is in.
Overall, this story fits nicely into the saga which is the Garrett Files, but does not stand out as one of the more spectacular works but is quite satisfying for this long time fan of the series.
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13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Bloated, but ultimately a good read..., June 4, 2008
This review is from: Cruel Zinc Melodies (Garrett, P.I. #12) (Mass Market Paperback)
I've been reading the Garrett novels since the early 90s. They started off being fantasy noir, owing a lot to Chandler. Back then, the novels were almost self contained. You had Garrett and maybe his two friends, Morley Dotes and Saucerhead Tharpe plus sometimes a couple other helpers just for that novel. Though not always those.
Now Garrett pretty much has a whole host of companions and it seems like Cook has to drag out every character Garrett has ever met for a cameo. And spend the first 100 pages bringing us up to speed on what has happened to them since the last novel. That's okay for hard core fans of the series, but if you haven't read all the past novels, you probably have no idea who is who. So it takes quite some time before we finally get to the actual mystery/plot of the novel, based around the haunting of a theater.
At times it seems like Cook was going for a "Chinatown" vibe, in describing some of the rich families of the city (who are indirectly connected to the troubles of the theater), but there isn't much characterization of them. So it's not that effective.
Ultimately it's worth it for Garrett fans, but I wish an editor had cut out some of the fat. And definitely not the way to get into the series.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Not the best of the Garrett series, June 8, 2008
This review is from: Cruel Zinc Melodies (Garrett, P.I. #12) (Mass Market Paperback)
I'm a huge Cook fan, but I felt this installment could have been cut in half. Seemed like some events happened just to fill space or bring a familar character into the story. One of Cook's strengths is lean prose. He seems to have gotten away from that here. Garrett's maturation process is kind of drawn out. Not the hard edge to this story some of his others have.
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