Faded Steel Heat: A Garrett, P.I., Novel [Mass Market Paperback]

As you can tell, I'm a fan. So here's my concern: Now where? I don't want to give away the plot for those who haven't read Faded Steel Heat. But it seems to me that this novel, much more so than its predecessors, wraps up loose ends and would make the series difficult to continue. A few characters are left dead, and others seem defeated. The web of remaining characters may have become too tangled to draw out into further plot lines, or at least plot lines involving those characters. And what would a Garrett novel be without Morley and the Dead Man and Tinnie and company? Much less fun, that's for sure. Cook has written his way out of seeming endings before, but this sure felt more final than any of the previous books.

I don't know. I do hope more TunFaire novels are in the works. But that's not for me to decide. Mr. Cook, if you read this, please give us more of Garrett! Any idiot could write hero-slays-dragon generic fantasy; but Garrett and his world are like nothing else out there. Let him tell us another tale from the Garrett files . . .

That said, this was a good, morally ambiguous, sprawling monster of a plot. Without spoiling anything, I can say that this book finally unifies a lot of plot threads that have lurked in the Garrett books for years. The 'all-star-cast' nature of it makes me wonder, actually, where Cook intends to go next. His own military experiences have informed so much of the series' development that I was a bit shocked at the back-cover text of the book announcing the 'end of the war', and now I wonder if the setting can sustain itself without that constant source of angst and suffering.

I can't recommend this as a *first* Garrett novel -- look in used bookstores for some of the earlier, now out-of-print books. Especially Old Tin Sorrows -- did I mention that it's incredible? :-) But as the latest entry in the series, it does its job admirably -- even with the jerky, disjointed nature of the storytelling.