He was short. He was ugly. Troops of nonhuman adventurers had enjoyed themselves swinging through his family tree. Most must have been ill-tempered and eternally suspicious because their descendant was in a bad mood and suspicious all the time.
I was face-to-face with Director Relway of the Unpublished Committee for Royal Security. Most people would not recognize the runt if he was snapping around their ankles, but I had butted heads with him several times. He was smiling. That was so unusual that I made sure my pockets hadn’t been picked already.
It was too late to make sure that I had an escape route plotted.
The ugly little man commanded more genuine hurt-you power than almost anybody but the queen of the underworld. He could intimidate the King himself, and all the sane people on the Hill. Irk Deal Relway and you could fall off the stage of the world forever.
Irk him badly enough and he might arrange for you never to have existed at all.
PRAISE FOR THE GARRETT, P.I., NOVELS
“A wild science fiction mystery that never slows down for a moment.”
—Midwest Book Review
“Garrett, private detective, returns after too long an absence. . . . Cook makes this blending of fantasy with hard-boiled detective story seem easy, which it isn’t, and manages to balance the requirements of both genres superbly.”
—Chronicle
“Cook brings a dose of gritty realism to fantasy.”
