Another Tuesday, another Lord Darcy story, in which Randall Garrett mixes magic and detection in an alternate-history Europe.

This week:

‘A Case of Identity’ (1964)

The Marquis of Cherbourg has, of late, been experiencing unusual episodes in which he is suddenly listless, confused, and easily-manipulated. Thankfully, these have only occurred when in the presence of his wife or other trusted members of his household, but now the situation has reached a crucial development: the Marquis disappeared two nights ago, and was, during all this, engaged in a most important investigation concerning an apparent curse on Atlantic-going vessels that sees the Empire’s sea trading put at risk.

Enter Lord Darcy, official investigator of shenanigans and whatnot where powerful people are concerned, and his colleague, the Irish sorcerer Sean O Lochlainn. Can they find the Marquis? Can they explain these unusual episodes he has been experiencing? And can they find the person or persons responsible for the apparent ill- fortune experienced by ships heading to or returning from the Americas? The entire Empire’s future, it would seem, rides on this matter, and so is not to be undertaken lightly.

‘A Case of Identity’ (1964), published some eight months after Darcy’s debut in ‘The Eyes Have It’ (1964) does good work in establishing the facts of this alternate history. Garrett is swift and authoritative in his summary of the changes the student of history will appreciate in bringing to life this alternate version of 1964 — established here canonically as the year in which this is all occurring — and the shape of the Empire ruled over by King John IV, “King and Emperor of England, France, Scotland, Ireland, New England, New France, Defender of the Faith, et cetera.”

Garrett is wise in that reshaping history this way will have effects beyond simply the countries mentioned above, and so the brief diversion into the Polish plot and the tenuous position of Russia in this new world order is interesting — and arguably crucial to understanding what’s going on — but this is once again largely background to the simple question of where the Marquis has gone and who is responsible. It also provides a chance to establish more the understanding of magic in this universe, now studied as a science and overseen by the Catholic Church, and yet still subject to the superstitions that, frankly, governs so much of human behaviour in the real world.

Do what they would, scientific researchers simply could not educate the common man to understand the intricacies and limitations of modern scientific sorcery. The superstitions of a hundred thousand years still clung to the minds of ninety-nine per cent of the human race, even in a modern, advanced civilization like the Empire. How does one explain that only a small percentage of the population is capable of performing magic? How to explain that all the incantations in the official grimoires won’t help a person who doesn’t have the Talent? How to explain that, even with the Talent, years of training are normally required before it can be used efficiently, predictably, and with power? People had been told again and again, but deep in their hearts they believed otherwise.

There’s still some fun to be had with the magic herein, such as the “FitzGibbon test for post-mortem activation” seemingly making it possible for a dead body to rise and move itself away from the scene of its murder, the notion of someone studying for a Th.D, or the principle of magic still having elements of doubt to it despite its treatment as a scientific principle.

But why did the addition of sal ammoniac increase the potency? Magicians simply said that sal ammoniac, saltpeter, and a few other minerals increased the similarity in some unknown way and let it go at that; sorcerers had better things to do than grub around in mineralogy.

Garrett does good work in this regard, but the answer eventually relies on magic which, while partly set up in the narrative, you also simply have to trust works as we’re told. It’s an interesting scheme, and ties in the dead body found by the docks in the opening scene very tidily, but it also reeks a little of ipsedixitism, my least favourite form of logical resolution to a story of detection.

It’s arguably less successful in the detection element — I could not follow the reasoning that saw a body in one place moved somewhere else in order to prove the surprise villain of the title guilty — and really needed tidying up in order to achieve this more neatly. But, well, the adventurous tone is well managed (the scenes of storming a boat towards the end are excellent), I liked some of the characters very much (I’d read an entire collection about Lord Seiger), and there are a couple of flashes of nicely understated humour:

The meeting between Lord Darcy and My Lady Elaine was brief and meaningless. Lord Darcy had no objection to the aroma of fine brandy, but he preferred it fresh rather than secondhand.

If the first story left the universe a little vague, this second visit brings things more sharply into focus and shows how simple actions can have far-reaching consequences in this world. We also get more of a sense of Darcy as a character, especially in the way he relates information so that it brings people onto his side, and so any loss from a plotting perspective is made up for in the fantasy elements and the individuals becoming a little clearer. It is sincerely to be hoped that, now Garrett has had a chance to fill in both sides of his mystery-fantasy concoction, the mix is a little more even going forward.

Come back next week to find out…!

The Lord Darcy stories by Randall Garrett: