Garrett Investigates(Deadly Quicksilver Lies/ Petty Pewter Gods/ Faded Steel Heat) [Hardcover]

Glen Cook (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 2004

Book Club Hardcover Edition

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: SFBC; Book Club (BCE/BOMC) edition (2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0739447521
• ISBN-13: 978-0739447529
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.9 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #787,067 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Consolidation of the 3rd Triad of Garrett Books, November 11, 2005

By 

David A. Lessnau (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Garrett Investigates(Deadly Quicksilver Lies/ Petty Pewter Gods/ Faded Steel Heat) (Hardcover)

Since most of Cook's Garrett books are long out of print and very difficult to come by, you might end up having to buy this consolidation to find the individual stories. This book, "Garrett Investigates," is the 3rd of the three consolidated so far. The others are "The Garrett Files" and "Garrett, P.I.." This book contains the 3rd triad of stories in the Garrett series: "Deadly Quicksilver Lies," "Petty Pewter Gods," "Faded Steel Heat." "The Garrett Files" contains the 1st triad: "Sweet Silver Blues," "Bitter Gold Hearts," and "Cold Copper Tears." "Garrett, P.I." contains the 2nd triad: "Old Tin Sorrows," "Dread Brass Shadows," and "Red Iron Nights." The remaining two books ("Angry Lead Skies," and "Whispering Nickel Idols") still appear to be in print on their own. As were the other two consolidations, this book is well bound, has good quality paper, and is well cut. As a pure average of my ratings for the three contained stories, I rate this book at a Very Good 4 stars out of 5. My individual reviews follow:

"Deadly Quicksilver Lies:" Not Very Happy With This One. Unfortunately, it's not up to par with the rest of the series. First, the book just seems to wander around in the middle. Garrett doesn't seem to be going anywhere with the mystery. It does pick up near the end, but that leads to the second problem: the solution to what's been happening just doesn't mean anything. We know who did what to whom and why (mostly). But, nobody really gets anything out of it. For the reader, the answers to all the questions are just emotionally empty. The final "big" problem with the book is that the character of Garrett's love interest, "Chastity," just falls apart. She's fine through most of the book, but then at the very end, she just drops out of the character (personally, emotionally, and professionaly) Cook set up for her. There's no explanation for it. It's very jarring and unwelcome. Because of this, I can only rate this book at an OK 3 stars out of 5.

"Petty Pewter Gods:" Good, But a Bit Disjointed. This is a good book that's fun to read. Unfortunately, it's not quite as good as other books in Cook's Garrett series. In many places, you can see that Cook wrote bits and pieces of the book and then cut-and-pasted them into the final order. It's not a big problem, it's just that the roughness is a bit disconcerting. A more irritating problem is that Garrett is working with a couple of pantheons of gods which I just couldn't keep straight. The individual gods, and the pantheons they belong to, just blend together and I couldn't tell who was doing what to whom. The biggest problem, though, is that the ending just appears out of thin air in the last 10 pages of the book. As I got closer and closer to the physical end, I kept wondering if this was going to be a two-parter: there was just no indication of a reasonable solution. With a sudden flurry of activity, the Dead Man and Garrett take a guess at what's going on and all heck breaks loose (which confirms their theory). Not a very satisfying ending at all. Still, I did enjoy reading the book and do recommend it. I rate this book at 4 stars out of 5.

"Faded Steel Heat:" Very Good But Has Inconsistencies. As are all Glen Cook's books with the title format of [adjective][metal type][noun], this is an interesting, fun, action-packed read. It's definitely a page-turner. Unfortunately, the minor inconsistencies I noticed in the previous book seem to be propogating in this one. Some of these errors are merely editing or lack of note-checking. For instance, near the beginning of this book, Garrett's talking to CAPTAIN Block. But, from two books back, we know that Block was promoted to COLONEL. A hundred pages on, though, Cook's got Block back as a COLONEL. In another case, Garrett's looking at a captured wagon. He specifically notes ONE prisoner. A couple pages later there are TWO prisoners. One page later, THREE. More seriously, there are behavioral problems. For instance, Garrett and his harem can't keep their minds on their business. In earlier books, Garrett's womanizing didn't really interfere in his business. In this book, both he and the women just stop working on important things (like infiltrations, kidnappings and murder) for a little bit of groping. And I mean they stop right in the middle of those things: not afterwards. Also, Garrett just misses obvious clues. He narrates to us about them, but nothing apparently clicks in his head. And then there's where he takes Tinnie with him to visit the headquarters of The Call (a militant human rights group). But, as noted in earlier books, Tinnie is part elf. Nobody ever notices. These problems are still minor. This is definitely a book to read (along with all the rest of the series). But, because of these discrepencies, I've lowered my rating for the book to 4 stars out of 5.