See The Guards of Haven for the review.

This was a compilation of three books in one, and I don't know that it was a good idea as the stories are very formulaic. The first book was ok. It was a locked door mystery, and while easy to figure out how it could have been solved earlier, the story worked fine as a whole. Reading the second book right after, it was too easy to see where the author cut and pasted entire paragraphs of description. The third book was the best, although I don't think it could stand on its own. It relied a bit too much on events covered in the previous two books. Overall a relatively quick read, but not the best fantasy I've read. ( )

The Hawk & Fisher series is pretty much a hybrid of Deathstalker & the Nightside books, though they do have a lot of stand alone elements & Hawk & Fisher are strong characters in their own right.
The novels are good solid mystery novels with Greens normal propensity for larger than life bad guys & characters who usually get around to the questions after they've kicked your ass. This will never be considered a classic of literature , though much like all Greens book it has a fast pace, plenty of action & more than enough to keep you turning the pages. ( )

A good way to kill time. 'Swords of Haven' is an omnibus of Simon R. Greens first three Hawk & Fisher novels: 'Hawk & Fisher', 'Winner Takes All', and 'God Killer'.

Greene doesn't spend much time world building here, these are punchy little action fantasy mysteries set in the port city of Haven. Really just fun fantasy candy, with a couple of memorable characters. I felt the strongest of the three was 'God Killer', but the other two are just fine.

The Fantasy equivalent of Summer Beach Reading.

There is a second Omnibus: 'Guards of Haven' which contains the remaining 3 novels. Both were republished in Trade Paper format by ROC a couple of years ago. ( )

Swords of Haven and Guards of Haven are a collection of six related mystery novels written by Simon Green. Each has three of the novels in it, and I'm going to write one review for the entire collection. This series follows up on two characters that were introduced in his earlier novel, "Blue Moon," though they've come a long way in their lives. Guards Hawk and Fisher are husband and wife, as well as partners, and attempt to patrol the most crime-ridden area of the most crime-ridden city in the lower kingdoms. Each novel in the collection contains a standalone mystery these characters tackle.

Hawk and Fisher are great characters, and the town of Haven is squarely in the tradition of Green's other settings: widely imaginative, gritty, violent, and often gruesome. I enjoyed the traditional mystery-novel stereotypes set in a fantasy/horror world with the added twist of magical rules that the Guards must deal with when solving crimes. As for the stories, Green attempts a couple of locked-house mysteries that are below par for him. The situations stretch credibility and the charaters do stupid things to move the plot along that I found very annoying. The other stories, however, are quite good, especially the final entry in the series.

I think the main interest in these books is as antecedant to Green's later, greater "Nightside" and "Deathstalker" series. You can see him trying out some of the ideas that will make those other works so unique and entertaining. I recdmmend reading Green's other series first and then reading these books to explore his development as an author. ( )