Bitter Gold Hearts by Glen Cook

by Chriss Cornish published: November 26, 2007 No Comments

This Book Is About

While the Stormwarden’s away her children will pay. Someone has abducted the magical and merciless Stormwarden’s son and heir. And when kidnapping’s the game, Garrett’s the name of the hard-boiled detective to call. But this time Garrett may be in the middle of something that’s too hot for him and his elvish allies to handle.

Even the bewitching beauty of a half-elf, the seductive sultriness of a lady willing to prove she’s wholly human, and the promise of a fortune in gold may not make this job worth it. Garrett’s in deep, and if he want to nab the kidnappers, he’ll have to face down ogres, assassins, and some of the wickedest women ever to walk this wildly enchanted land.

My Thoughts On This Book

Bitter Gold Hearts, and all the other books in this series, are action packed can’t-put-it-down hardboiled detective mysteries in a fantasy setting. I love this book. It’s the second in the Garrett P.I. series and the first of them that I read. I stayed up all night reading it the very day I got it at Mysterious Galaxy. I devoured it.

Garrett P.I. is a noir detective series set in a fantasy world, which is about as far as you can get from the ‘save-the-magic-kingdom’ plotting stereotypical of the genre. Glen Cook was clearly inspired by the early detective fiction, as evidenced by the Nero Wolf influenced character of the Dead Man. The fantasy world setting makes it all wonderfully fun and adds a fresh dimension to hard-boiled detecting.

The characters themselves are great. Garrett is a wise-cracking ex-marine private investigator with a specialty in kidnap cases and an expertise in getting his ass out of the fire, which is handy since he’s just as good at getting it IN the fire. His housemate is a guy who was stabbed to death 400 years ago but is too stubborn to leave his corpulent corpse. His best buddy is a half dark-elf who’s one of the badest-asses in the criminal world and the owner of a vegetarian restaurant catering to non-humans. His light-o-love is a fiery professional redhead, and his ancient housekeeper keeps trying to hook him up with his plethora of homely nieces.

The story is set in a world where a generations-long war has been going on. The main character is an ex-marine, as is the author himself. As the Garret P.I. series progresses you see the war end and the social effects of a society going from decades of war to the backlash of such a lengthy conflict ending. It’s an interesting undercurrent to the books. Bitter Gold Hearts is just the second book, though, so the war is still going on in the background of the plot.

What I particularly enjoyed about Bitter Gold Hearts, though, is the way Cook develops his plots and the action. It’s all so engrossing and engaging. I enjoy his Garret P.I. books so much that when I re-read one I end up re-reading the rest of the series because I want more, even though I’ve read them all several times.

Glen Cook is one of my favorite authors, and this is the book that introduced me to his work.

Rating & Levels For This Book

I Give This Book
four Vikings out of five

Violence Level
three Burning Huts out of five

Romance Level
one Hearts out of five

# of actual vikings in book: 0

What do these levels mean? ”

Humor Level
two Smiles out of five

Lust Level
two Kisses out of five

Author and Publishing Information For This Book

Author & Book Details

Title: Bitter Gold Hearts
Author(s): Glen Cook
ISBN#: 9780451450722
Genre(s): Hardboiled detective fantasy
Edition Reviewed: 2007 reprinting of 1988 paperback edition
Illustrations: N/A
Page Count: 280
Part of a Series: Yes, book 2 of the Garrett PI series

Publishing & Copyright Details

Publisher(s): RoC (a New American Library imprint [a division of Penguin Group])
Copyright: 1988 /2007 (they reprinted the edition but didn’t update the copyright number, just the publisher’s note)
In Print: Yes
Original Language: English
Published in Other Languages: No
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