A killer stalks the Tun Faire.
Red Iron Nights is the six 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 finds himself working for a most unexpected employer: The Tun Faire police as they hire him to find a Serial Killer who are targeting upper class young women before ritually slaughtering them. Garrett also barely manages to protect the daughter of Chodo, the biggest crime lord in the city, when mysterious strangers target him. While he's fully capable of finding the killer, every clue indicates this has been going on for generations.
Belinda, Chodo's daughter, also wants to hire Garrett in order to help her against the twins, Crask and Sadler, that are holding her father hostage. Chodo suffered a stroke after the events of Dread Brass Shadows and is being used as a Puppet King.
It is followed by Deadly Quicksilver Lies.
Red Iron Nights has the following tropes:
- Artifact of Death: The coach used by the killer has acquired this reputation among the coachmakers, although it could be a coincidence that so many people connected with it have met a sticky end.
- Betty and Veronica: Belinda (A Mafia Princess Veronica) and Candy (A Hooker with a Heart of Gold) compete for Garrett's affections with the former winning until Garrett sees how awful she is by how she handles her father's business.
- By-the-Book Cop: Captain Westman Block is as close to this as the City Watch has, being concerned about actually getting the killer as well as making sure that Garrett is properly compensated for his time. Block gradually becomes a Rabid Cop as he forms his own State Sec to deal with organized crime.
- Cartwright Curse: Both Tini and Maya have left Garrett due to his inability to commit to either of them.
- Cast from Lifespan: The more power the curse-possessed killer, the more rapid aging it caused.
- Coitus Ensues: It doesn't take long for Garrett and Belinda to get in bed together for no other reason than they find the other attractive.
- Disposable Sex Worker: The rich young female victims turn out to all have been working as sex workers, which drew attention to the killers they didn't expect. It had been a fad to act as the bad girl.
- Even Evil Has Standards: As misogynist as Dead Man is, he is repulsed and disgusted by the Serial Killer.
- Evil Parents Want Good Kids: Belinda said her father wanted to keep her out of the family business.
- Fate Worse than Death: The killers are left bricked up in a cell to spend the rest of their lives in solitary confinement with only food slipped in until they can figure out a way to undo the spell for good. Which isn't going to happen any time soon and won't save them.
- Flat Character: The killer(s) are all completely absent any motivation or character. Because they're affected by a curse that can't be cured.
- He Knows Too Much: Garrett expects that Crask and Sadler think this of him and are looking for an excuse to off him. He's correct and it bites Crask in the ass.
- Jack the Ripoff: The murders are being conducted against prostitutes, though Garrett doesn't initially know this, and by a brutal organ-harvesting killer. It turns out they're all victims of a curse that drives them insane.
- Mafia Princess: Belinda Contague is an example. Notably, her father never hid his shady doings from her.
- Meet the New Boss: Belinda successfully takes over her father's criminal syndicate from Crask and Sadler using the exact same methods that they did. Garrett is disgusted.
- Orifice Evacuation / Invasion: The butterfly-barfing villain expels these as part of his condition.
- Parental Incest: Previous historical references suggest that incest isn't uncommon among the sorcerous elite, because magical ability is genetic and inbreeding amplifies this over generations. The fact that this usually leaves most sorcerers inbred and insane doesn't bother anyone.
- Police Brutality: Block says it would have been better to fake a suicide for Crask than release him. Garrett turns out to be the only person against it.
- Puppet King: The Twins are using the stroke-suffering Chodo to control his criminal enterprises. Belinda ends up doing the same
- Serial Killer: A mysterious killer (or set of killers) are targeting the rich young noblewomen of Tun Faire.
- Spanner in the Works: Crask and Sadler don't expect Garrett to not only shelter Belinda but also go to the police when they try to blackmail him into finding Belinda. To be fair, Garrett had no connection to the police and couldn't have relied on their protection before solving the murders for them.
- Thanatos Gambit: The curse turns out to be Blood Magic designed to resurrect a long dead wizard but he never kills enough to do it.
- Weirdness Magnet: So much so, even brunos who only know Garrett by reputation start leaving Morley's bar when he arrives, to avoid the inevitable weird.
- Wild Magic: The curse from Red Iron Nights is "alive" in a sense, and able to learn. And breed.
- Won the War, Lost the Peace: The end of the Cantard War causes more social disruption and economic unrest than did keeping it going for three generations. The Dead Man even speculates that this trope is why it was allowed to go on so long.
- You Can't Thwart Stage One: Garrett manages to find the killers halfway through the book, but the killings continue.
