Lord Darcy

[scarfman]

Randall Garrett's Lord Darcy series of stories, about a detective in a world of magic instead of science, endeared itself to me when I first read it a quarter century ago because I figured out who the murderer was halfway through the first story, "The Eyes Have It". It all comes of recognizing a, or the, most significant clue when it comes along.

I also figured out the murderer halfway through the only novel-length story, Too Many Magicians - though that wasn't from any internal clue in the story.

Spoiler in the paragraph below

The murderer was the only character in the novel besides the series leads who was ever the point-of-view character in the prose. I figured it out during the swordfight.

End spoiler.

For someone who loves puns, I have a lot of those that reportedly pervade Garrett's works go right past me. In the case of Too Many Magicians it may just be because I'm not particularly an aficianado of the mystery genre and the sources of the wordplay. It's been about twenty years since I last read it, though, so I may have more of the referents this time.

Though, when I first read the novel, Lord Darcy's cousin the Marquis de London caught my attention. de London is corpulent and indolent, and I thought, "Mycroft Holmes." But Mycroft Holmes does get out a little, and de London never leaves his home and his garden. Then I realized the botany aspect was indicative of Nero Wolfe, a character I know of but only second-hand. "de London is Nero Wolfe," I realized, "and his aide Lord Bontriomphe is Archie Goodwin."

Then I thought, "Good win."

Then I thought, "Bon triomphe."

Then I had to put the book aside for five minutes while I calmed down.

Comments

[redneckgaijin.livejournal.com]

The Marquis de Jack London, perhaps? };-{D

[redneckgaijin.livejournal.com]

Also, there are three Wolfe mystery novels beginning with "Too Many":

Too Many Cooks
Too Many Women
Too Many Clients

I've read the first two; the third is annoyingly long out of print.

[pedanther]

I love the Lord Darcy stories, and the puns are a big part of it. Did you notice the pun that was very carefully not being made in the subplot about Tia Einzig's missing uncle?

I knew who the murderer was in Too Many Magicians from the first sentence in which the character is mentioned - again, not from an internal clue. It's one of those sentences that's cleverly designed to mean something completely different the second time you read the story, and it happened that I'd recently read an Agatha Christie sentence that was clever in just the same way, so I saw what it was doing.

My big missing-the-referent moment with the Darcy stories was that the first time I read "The Bitter End" I completely failed to recognise the interfering Sergeant-at-Arms Cougair-Chasseur. Well, I was young, and had not yet seen any of the films about Le cougair rose...

[scarfman]

I don't think I'd seen any of those films yet when I first read Garrett either. Though I owned the music on a 45.

[dave-iii.livejournal.com]

I need to read some Nero Wolfe... My first thought was, "Archie Goodwin? The Marvel editor back in the 80's? THAT'S a weird connection to make...."

[daibhid-c.livejournal.com]

One where I'm still not sure if I'm getting the reference is Lord Seiger in "A Case of Identity". The name (as in "Sigerson") and origin (North Riding of Yorkshire) conspire to suggest Sherlock Holmes, but the character himself doesn't fit.

[pedanther]

That one's been puzzling me ever since I read that story, for much the same reasons. The best I could come up with is that it's meant to be a shout-out to the Holmes stories without the character actually being Holmes.

I'm not sure Garrett would ever have included a direct counterpart to Holmes, anyway, because he's out-of-period. It's my impression that he only included direct counterparts of characters who were still actively contemporary (de London and Cougair-Chasseur, as already mentioned, and of course Sir James le Lien...), but for older characters there are only references; "The Napoli Express" has a great big shout-out to Father Brown, for instance, but not an appearance by the man himself.

(Of course Michael Kurland put Irene Eagleson in one of his Lord Darcy novels, but that's a different kettle of fish.)