Deadly Quicksilver Lies is the seventh book of the Garrett, P.I. books by Glen Cook. It is a Fantastic Noir series set in a High Fantasy world. Garrett is a private investigator, former Marine, and Knight in Sour Armor working to solve a variety of cases with all the witches as well as other creatures about him.
Garrett has no backup other than the Goddamn Parrot when Dean goes out of town and Dead Man enters a particularly deep sleep. Thankfully, he has a new job when Winger directs a beautiful client to his doorstep: Maggie Jenn, the former mistress of Tunfaire's former king. Maggie's daughter, Emerald, has disappeared and she wants Garrett to find her.
Garrett soon finds himself in a complicated case he's kidnapped and thrown into a mental institution by a mysterious criminal known as "The Rainmaker." What is the Rainmaker's relationship to Maggie Jenn and how does a lost treasure have to do with it?
It is followed by Petty Pewter Gods.
Deadly Quicksilver Lies has the following tropes:
- All for Nothing: All the efforts to find the treasure is pointless because it was lost under the sea centuries ago.
- Big Creepy-Crawlies: The "little booger" from Deadly Quicksilver Lies isn't all that big, but it does enough damage for a whole swarm of Big Creepy-Crawlies.
- Creepy Crossdresser: Grange Cleaver and Maggie Jenn are the same person. Garrett assumes that Grange is the real identity. He's wrong.
- Downer Ending: Garrett ends up killing Maggie Jenn, assuming she's actually the Rainmaker. She is but also in love with him. The treasure was lost long ago. Oh and human supremacists are slowly taking over the country.
- Draft Dodging: A royal bureaucrat turns up looking for the Rainmaker, who's not on record as having served his five years in the Cantard. For a good reason: Grange "the Rainmaker" Cleaver was the alternate identity of Maggie Jenn, and women aren't subject to Karentine military conscription unless they're sorcerers.
- Fragile Speedster: The "little booger" from Deadly Quicksilver Lies.
- Gambit Roulette: Multiple parties are looking for old books that contain the secret of the Eagle's treasure that they think Garrett might possess. This includes attempting to befriend, betray, or eliminate Garrett without him knowing why. The Eagle's treasure was lost at sea.
- It's Quiet… Too Quiet: Garrett Lampshades it to Eleanor in the aftermath of Deadly Quicksilver Lies.
- The Little Shop That Wasn't There Yesterday: The witch Handsome from Deadly Quicksilver Lies runs one.
- One-Steve Limit: In a nickname example, both the witch Garrett consults in Deadly Quicksilver Lies and the security guard at the World building site from Cruel Zinc Melodies go by "Handsome".
- Planet of Steves: The main reason Garrett didn't like No Ravens Went Hungry, the historical trilogy of books from Deadly Quicksilver Lies, was that far too many of its characters had virtually-identical names.
- Schmuck Bait: The small box Handsome lends to Garrett in Deadly Quicksilver Lies. Even after it starts to buzz menacingly and one of his thugs warns him, Davenport still opens it and unleashes the deadly "little booger" on himself.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: The treasure of Eagle, sought by many competing parties in fell into the sea and was lost centuries ago. And the Dead Man knew it all along, but nobody asked.
- Sweet Polly Oliver: Maggie Jenn was actually the Rainmaker the entire time and assumed to be a gay man while she was fighting in the war.
- Unsettling Gender-Reveal: Subverted. Garrett finds out the Rainmaker and Maggie Jenn are the same person but makes the mistake that Maggie is a man versus the reverse.
- Whole-Plot Reference: Garrett being kidnapped and locked up in an asylum is from Farewell, My Lovely.
- World's Most Beautiful Woman: Maggie Jenn in her heyday. Even as a middle aged mother, she is easily one of the loveliest creatures that Garrett has ever seen.
