As a side note: this recent trend of closing a novel as soon as the action finishes is really tiresome. I get the idea behind it - close on an emotional high point where the story is finished - but in practice, well, I read these novels because I love the characters. I have loved them for over twenty years at this point and I've read each novel multiple times. Give me the dammed epilogue that fulfills the emotional connections beyond those served up in the narrative action. Editors at Tor and Roc, I'm looking at you.) John Stretch’s ratmen do more investigating than Garrett does in this book. Not to be racist, (ratmen are people too!) but we expect more from you than that, Garrett.

This is going to be one of my favorite Garrett novels once I read it for the second time. It was so stressful the first time that I kept having to put it down to catch my breath. Good interaction between our old favorite characters, an interesting story and more of Garrett bulling through all problems to a solution. So why was it stressful? First of all, ‘P.I.’ in this book didn’t stand for ‘Private Investigator.’ It stood, instead, for ‘Public Investigation.’ Historically, Garrett has relied on his friends for assistance in his investigations. In this book, Garrett starts the investigation, and then everyone else takes it from there. And I still adore Cook's (often daft) character names. 'Furious Tide of Light' is such a great name. But I still prefer her MatteTrances – they are bomb. One application over liner (either PMG or Charlotte Tilbury) can last me 8 hours and one lasted through a 1hr hot yoga class where we sweat like pigs. It’s no joke. The pigment is out of this world. But my presence might be a function of my perception that mattes stay on reliably longer than glitter/shimmer/satin formulas. Not the best of the series, but not the worst by any means. Either way, this appears to be the *last* of the series :-( It's been six years since this was published. In the past, a new Garrett, P.I. novel showed up every 18 months or so. Sad, but every well runs dry, eventually.Enter Strafa, or enter again, really. These last three books really do feel like a sort of trilogy with her family at the center, or at least the outer core of it all. She's great, she's fine, she's smart and cute and everyone loves her, even Garrett. I was willing to get on board with her, really i was. I didn't like how Tinnie got thrown under the bus. I thought it was a bad narrative choice this far into the series, but I was like alright, i can get on team Strafa, she's nice, and makes things a whole hell of a lot easier for Garrett. He get a competent sorceress partner out of it all. Another thing that made this book hard to follow at times is the sheer size of the cast. Over the series, a lot of characters have been introduced into Garrett's life. It seems every single one of those characters made at least an appearance in this story. Plus a whole bunch of new characters are introduced. A grand underground tournament has been set up and is meant to be a battle-royale type: the kids are in it if they want to or not and whether they have actual magic powers or not. This case gets very close for Garrett personally because someone he loves has died and now he is out for revenge. So does Playmate sometimes, though he's been a bit laid up with the cancer. And what was the point of giving him cancer if it didn't mean anything? Before the cancer he ran his stable and wanted to put some brains into his brother in law. After the cancer, he runs his stable, and wants to put some brains into his brother in law. Nothing functionally changed in the man, he's still strong as an ox, he still holds firmly to his beliefs, as far as we can tell. Don't give the man cancer if you're not gonna do anything with it!!!

Glen Cook was born in New York City, lived in southern Indiana as a small child, then grew up in Northern California. After high school he served in the U.S. Navy and attended the University of Missouri. He worked for General Motors for 33 years, retiring some years ago. He started writing short stories in 7th grade, had several published in a high school literary magazine. He began writing with malicious intent to publish in 1968, eventually producing 51 books and a number of short fiction pieces. only Garrett’s friends reacted to her death in any way; Garrett and Strafa's family sort of shrugged it off.But instead she's killed off, to literally no effect. No one emotes. Sure, Shadowslinger says something to the effect of 'take time to sort out your feelings' and there's a minor time skip and all, but it isn't enough. Not for me at least. And then she's replaced like fifteen percent of the way by another sorceress off the Hill palling around with Garrett, guiding him through all these various interactions and getting him debugged after his run in's with Relway and company. Why the hell couldn't that have been Strafa!? Maybe let us get to know the woman who ousted Tinnie in the span of one fetching book! And while i'm on the subject of Garrett's inner thoughts, what was up with everyone breaking him out of his thoughts all the time? His thoughts never really took up real time before, and honestly they don't really have to, so why now? He was broken out of some genuinely insightful thoughts for no real reason. It wasn't humorous and i honestly didn't appreciate everyone stopping the investigator from y'know, investigating. And then people had the nerve to roll their eyes at him for being slow!? Let the man think, you dinguses! We appreciate enthusiasm for new releases but ask readers to please hold questions regarding if/when Perhaps the biggest lost opportunity, however, is that we are finally on the Hill and have a chance to get deep into the aristocracy that has been on the outskirts of so many of these novels and I just didn’t feel like Cook took advantage of that situation. I usually dislike 'urban fantasy' series that run too long, or that stray too close to the tropes of that sub-genre as they are almost universally terrible. I'll spare you a rant about Jim Butcher, here.