Red Iron Nights — Glen Cook

BLOOD-SOAKED BLADES
had been taking their toll among the luscious lovelies in Garrett's home city of TunFaire. And though Garrett could be as civic-minded as the next guy--unless the next guy was Captain Block of the Watch--the private eye wasn't sure he really wanted to take on a serial killer psycho who did too good a carving job and never left any of the blood behind. Still, having Block pay him for his services with lots of ill-gotten government funds, and having his own partner, the Dead Man, strenuously urge him to take the case, proved an irresistible combination for Garrett. And so the top--and only--private eye around found himself lining up his allies for a search that would take him from the lowest slums to the highest estates, from confrontations with butterfly- and magic-spitting enemies to run-ins with the king of crime's wayward daughter to a final encounter with an ancient evil which had once again been loosed on his unsuspecting town....