Monday Begins on Saturday
The beloved comic classic of Russian SF — its title is a national catchphrase — and the recognisable ancestor of every magical-civil-service fantasy from Laundry Files to Ministry of Magic.
Book Entry · Fantasy
What is Sweet Silver Blues about?
Garrett — ex-Marine, professional finder of things and people in the city of TunFaire, allergic to mornings and most employers — is hired to deliver an inheritance to a dead comrade's mysterious beneficiary, which means going back to the Cantard war zone he barely survived the first time, in company with the dead man's terrifying relatives and the half-dark-elf killer Morley Dotes. Cook pours Chandler straight into a fantasy glass: vampires and centaurs on the mean streets, a sleeping partner who is a four-hundred-pound dead Loghyr who reads minds, and narration in pure private-eye vernacular. The hangover, the dame, the double-cross — all present, all armed.
Why it matters
The invention of fantasy noir: Garrett's first case established the detective-in-a-fantasy-city template that runs straight to Dresden Files and half of modern urban fantasy.
Where does it sit in the series?
A hard-boiled human detective in a fantasy city of elves, ogres and dead gods' leftovers: Chandler with sorcery, and the template for urban fantasy noir.
In the Guide from Garrett, P.I.:
- Sweet Silver Blues (1987)
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Guardian Award winner and the launch of Chrestomanci: the wittiest of the great British children's fantasy sequences and a visible ancestor of the boarding-school-magic boom that followed two decades later.