Garrett's newly minted life with main squeeze Tinnie isn't all bliss and crackers. Sure, the benefits of having a gorgeous woman as a regular part of the day is not to be sneezed at, but his job as security expert for the Amalgamated Manufacturing Combine is beginning to pall. He is manfully keeping his promise to stay away from the darker elements of TunFaire when fate, in the form of two bumbling would-be kidnappers, brings the seedy side of life back, front and center. He can hardly ignore an attempt to steal Tinnie from their bed, now can he? And when his best friend, Morley Dotes, is found beaten and close to death in an alley, how is he supposed to turn his back and refuse to help? Too bad Tinnie's logic doesn't work that way. She might have taken it better if the news hadn't been brought to their door by the beautiful-but-deadly Belinda Contague, empress of organized crime and old (but brief, very brief) flame from Garrett's past.

Before the new day is much advanced Garrett is back in action, working out of the house on Macunado street and gathering info from all his old contacts to pin down who wanted to kidnap Tinnie, and who had it in for Morley. When clues left at the scene of the attack hint at some zombie action, the recent spate of corpse stealing seems to tie in nicely, but even finding the smelly lab where the resurrection men brought their booty brings no answers, only more questions.

A heady mix of Science Fiction/Fantasy blended with noirish hardboiled detective story, the Garret, PI series is still going strong through this 13th incarnation. From book one, Sweet Silver Blues, Glen Cook has woven a world on the cusp of industrialization where familiar characters live and grow, and wrapped it all up in a great detective story laced through with those elements of fantasy and grit he writes so well. The series was Steampunk seasoned with a dash of dark Tolkien years before the term Steampunk was coined, and few authors do it better.