**edited 12/15/13 
 In any reasonably thorough exploration of the space of Urban Fantasy, the bizarre combination of hardboiled noir detective stories and fantasy, Glen Cook's Garrett, PI series is definitely a necessary read. From my understanding, Garrett is one of the first urban fantasies written. It certainly is a landmark in the genre. 
 One of the things I loved most about the story was the world. Garrett's world is significantly more creative than the UF norm: a low-fantasy merging of our world with a secret society of individuals with special powers. Garrett lives on a totally original, fully-fledged fantasy realm where magic is the norm and dark elves, ratmen, ogres, and more coexist with humans in noisy, busy, and overcrowded cities. The atmosphere of cities themselves, especially TunFaire, where Garrett lives, feels a bit like Anhk Morpork: a cheerful, amoral chaos where mythical creatures rub shoulders with practical magical inventions. The world also has a complex history: there is an ongoing war between two of the human-inhabited countries over an area of silver mines, since silver is a necessary ingredient used by wizards in their spells. Cook does a fantastic job twisting common mythical creatures into new, creative, and realistic-feeling versions. For example, unicorns are vicious creatures that travel in packs and hunt humans. 
 ...And that's all I'm going to post here. 
 The rest of my (rather verbose) review is posted over here at Booklikes. 
 Why? Because I disapprove of GoodReads' new policy of censorship, and will no longer allow my full reviews to be posted here.