Lord Darcy Investigates

Book excerpt: If King Richard the Lionheart hadn’t died in 1199 and his descendants ruled the Anglo-French Empire, castles would be illuminated by lantern light and long distance conversation would be held by way of “telesin.” In the world of detective Lord Darcy and his sidekick, sorcerer Sean O’Lochlainn, it is a very different looking late 20th Century. The laws of magic have developed in place of the laws of physics, but it is Lord Darcy’s remarkable deductive reasoning skills that answer “whodunnit.” "A Matter of Gravity" (1974) When a magically talentless count falls from a tower window in a locked room, Lord Darcy and Master Sean recreate the moment of impact to prove murder. What they uncover turns out to be both absolutely real and absolutely deadly. "The Ipswich Phial" (1976) In this political thriller, a secret agent’s dead body is found on a beach with no footsteps in any direction. Love potions, beautiful Polish spies, and the disappearance of the sun itself all spin a complicated web Lord Darcy must untangle. "The Sixteen Keys" (1976) When Lord Vauxhall is found dead in his home, it isn’t the idea that he’s been murdered that’s so shocking. It’s that he appears to have aged fifty years in an hour. The explanation is rooted in a desire as old as humanity itself. "The Napoli Express" (1979) Winner of the 1980 Locus Pole Award for Best Novella, this story infuses magic and humor in Garret’s homage to Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express. When a murder on the Napoli Express interrupts Lord Darcy’s delivery of a secret treaty, the world’s safety hangs in the balance.