Review: Dread Brass Shadows (Garrett Files #5) by Glen Cook

Dread Brass Shadows (Garrett Files #5) by Glen Cook

Garrett is a little slow in the fifth volume of the Garrett Files. Admittedly, there is a lot of confusing and even traumatic things happening around him, but he misses a crucial fact early in the novel that would have potentially shortened the book by about two hundred pages. Not that that’s a bad thing—those two hundred pages are fun, packed with mayhem and mischief.

 

The novel opens with Garrett’s on-again off-again girlfriend, Tinnie Tate, getting stabbed as she walks up the road to see him. There’s no reason that anyone can figure for the attack until a woman comes to Garrett seeking his help to find a missing book. It turns out that just about everyone wants to get their hands on this book, a magical volume whose pages are made of brass. Most of the people searching for the book believe that Garrett has it and they spend a lot of time trying to coerce answers out of him, sneak into his house, or just straight up kill him. Then mob boss Codo Contague gets involved and the stakes are substantially raised with all sides still trying to recruit Garrett or wipe him out of the fight.

 

Most of the usual support cast is absent for most of the novel. The reason is a little weak, but it gives Cook an excuse for his big blow out ending—the conclusion of which sets the stage for more problems in future novels.

 

The best thing about this book is the fate of the book—which contains one of those images Cook paints so well that has hung in my mind for the thirty or so years since I first read it.

 

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