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Garrett PI Books in Order

Part ofGlen Cook Books in Order

Browse the Garrett P.I. series by Glen Cook in order, with book lists, mystery summaries, reading tips, and background on TunFaire’s hardboiled private eye.

Last updated: December 26, 2025

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Publication Order

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15 books

1

Wicked Bronze Ambition

by Glen Cook

2013

Garrett’s quiet life in TunFaire ends when he is hired to protect a cluster of young heirs marked for death in a lethal magical contest, forcing him and the Dead Man to untangle god-level politics, old grudges, and a killer who always seems one move ahead.

2

Gilded Latten Bones

by Glen Cook

2010

An attack that nearly kills Garrett drags him into a case tied to his own tangled love life, with Furious Tide of Light, Tinnie, crime bosses, and the Civil Guard all circling while he hunts whoever is murdering powerful people around TunFaire’s elite hill.

3

Cruel Zinc Melodies

by Glen Cook

2008

Hired to keep an ambitious theater project from coming apart, Garrett finds himself dealing with a haunted construction site, corrupt investors, and an infestation that may not be entirely human, all while his relationship with Tinnie grows more complicated.

4

Whispering Nickel Idols

by Glen Cook

2005

When a plague and an assassination plot hit TunFaire at the same time, Garrett is strong-armed into protecting a crime lord whose enemies are many and patient, forcing him to juggle quarantines, cults, and the city’s suddenly very busy secret police.

5

Angry Lead Skies

by Glen Cook

2002

Strange visitors with impossible technology arrive in TunFaire and hire Garrett for protection, but every faction in the city wants a piece of them, turning a simple bodyguard job into a chaotic battle over secrets that could change the balance of power.

6

Faded Steel Heat

by Glen Cook

1999

Garrett goes undercover to look into a human-supremacist group targeting mixed-blood citizens, stumbling into a plot that mixes political terror, family vendettas, and city-reshaping magic while the Dead Man pushes him to pick a side.

7

Petty Pewter Gods

by Glen Cook

1995

Minor gods hire Garrett to mediate their turf war over a derelict temple, but what looks like divine squabbling masks a scheme that could redraw TunFaire’s religious map and get a lot of mortals killed in the crossfire.

8

Deadly Quicksilver Lies

by Glen Cook

1994

A glamorous client with a story full of holes hires Garrett to find her missing lover and lost fortune, pulling him into a maze of political blackmail, buried scandals, and an enemy who keeps rewriting the truth.

9

Red Iron Nights

by Glen Cook

1991

Called in by the Watch to consult on a string of brutal murders, Garrett must track a killer who may not be entirely human, dragging him through cults, noble houses, and TunFaire’s ugliest alleys.

10

Dread Brass Shadows

by Glen Cook

1990

Hired to find a young woman and a set of legendary grimoires known as the Book of Shadows, Garrett finds every power in TunFaire suddenly very interested in the same prize, and discovers that reading the books may be worse than losing them.

11

Old Tin Sorrows

by Glen Cook

1989

An old army buddy asks Garrett to look into a slow death in a decaying mansion, and the case turns into a gothic tangle of ghosts, family curses, and long-nursed war crimes that refuse to stay buried.

12

Cold Copper Tears

by Glen Cook

1988

A breathtakingly attractive woman brings Garrett what looks like a routine missing-person case, but it quickly escalates into murders, church politics, and a hunt for relics that several religions would kill to possess.

13

Bitter Gold Hearts

by Glen Cook

1988

Garrett is hired by a powerful sorceress’s household when her son is kidnapped, but ransom demands, hired killers, and family secrets make it clear that the real crime is much bigger than a simple snatch-and-grab.

14

Sweet Silver Blues

by Glen Cook

1987

In his first recorded case, Garrett is hired by the family of an old army buddy to track down an heiress in a distant war zone, plunging him into vampire-ridden territory, old heartbreak, and a rescue mission that goes very wrong before it goes right.

15

Introducing Garrett, P.I.

by Glen Cook

1980

This omnibus gathers the first three Garrett novels—Sweet Silver Blues, Bitter Gold Hearts, and Cold Copper Tears—offering a single-volume introduction to the hardboiled private eye of TunFaire and his irreverent mix of mystery and magic.

Series background & context

The Garrett P.I. books take Glen Cook’s love of noir and mash it with a crowded, magic-soaked city that never quite sleeps. Instead of a modern metropolis, Garrett works the streets of TunFaire, a fantasy capital packed with humans, dwarves, ogres, rat people, sorcerers, and more than a few gods who meddle when it suits them.

Garrett himself is an ex-marine who would rather drink beer on his front stoop than chase clients, but rent is due and trouble finds him anyway. He tells the stories in first person, with the wisecracking voice of a classic detective and the worldview of a man who has seen too many battlefields. Most cases start small, a missing person, a simple theft, a body in the wrong place, then sprawl outward until half the city’s gangs, noble houses, and crooked officials are involved.

He rarely works alone. His real edge is the Dead Man, a telepathic, four-hundred-year-old nonhuman whose body is technically dead but whose mind is terrifyingly active. Add in Dean the housekeeper, health-nut assassin Morley Dotes, on-again off-again girlfriend Tinnie Tate, and a rotating cast of Watch captains, crime bosses, and stubborn clients, and each book feels like dropping back into a very dysfunctional extended family.

The novels lean hard into the detective side of things: clues, interviews, double-crosses, and the occasional bar fight. Magic is everywhere but rarely solves problems cleanly. In one book Garrett might be chasing a kidnapped sorcerer’s child, in another refereeing a turf war between minor gods, in a third trying to keep alien visitors alive long enough to leave town. Whatever the job, he tends to get beaten up, fall for the wrong people, and stumble onto a bigger game than anyone told him about.

Tonally, the series swings between darkly funny and surprisingly heartfelt. Cook uses the cases to poke at class, race, corrupt institutions, and the long grind of an endless border war that hangs over TunFaire like a permanent storm. Long-time readers watch Garrett age, gain and lose friends, and figure out how much of his own conscience he is willing to bend for a paycheck.

If you are coming from The Black Company, these books feel lighter on the surface yet share the same interest in how working people survive under bad systems. This background focuses on explaining who is who, what kind of mysteries Garrett usually tackles, and how the titles fit together so you can jump in without feeling lost.

Edited by

Richard Reis

Software engineer whose passion for tracking book recommendations from podcasts inspired the creation of MRB.

Anurag Ramdasan

Lead investor at 3one4 Capital whose startup expertise and love for books helped shaped MRB and its growth.

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All 15 Garrett PI Books in Order (Complete List 2026)