Lord Darcy Investigates

This volume contains ten short stories and a novel. Having first read most of them long ago, I don't usually read the whole thing straight through: I might reread one or a few stories, or I might reread the novel.

They all take place in the same world, with the same central characters, although other characters come and go. If you're reading about Lord Darcy for the first time, I think it makes sense to read through in order, as they come—the order in which they were written. However, there isn't a real need to do so, as the stories can all be read independently in any order. The stories in Part 3 are slightly connected, but the connection isn't vital.

Although I like the novel, it's very plot-driven. Oddly enough, the short stories seem slightly more relaxed, there seems a bit more room for the characters to breathe and the incidental details to be explored. And, of course, each of the stories can visit new places and show different aspects of this world: the alternative world of the flourishing Anglo-French Empire in the 1960s and 1970s, in which Lord Darcy is the Chief Investigator for the Duke of Normandy, accompanied by Master Sean O Lochlainn, his forensic sorcerer. There is always a crime to be investigated: usually murder, or at least homicide. Some of the crimes are committed by agents of the Polish Empire: the main opposing power that the Anglo-French Empire is concerned about.

Randall Garrett was an old-style sf writer, born in 1927; his writing style is adequate but not sophisticated. For readers of sf and fantasy in the 1960s, it was fine, but it don't expect it to be written like modern fiction.