Lord Darcy, Chief Investigator for the Duke of Normandy, is the main character of Too Many Magicians. Not a magician himself, he dominates the book by his authority and by his relentless powers of observation and deduction as the man responsible for investigating the murder of Sir James Zwinge, chief forensic sorcerer for the city of London and secretly the head of counterespionage for the Admiralty.

Darcy is also an agent in the King's Secret Service. A Sherlock Holmes without the neuroses, Darcy can also be described as a G. K. Chesterton version of James Bond. Ruthlessness in pursuit is tempered by a sense of humor and sensible humility. Darcy, for example, shares none of the ascetic Holmes's habitual scorn of women. His "Dr. Watson," Master Sean O Lochlainn, is a more independent, powerful figure in his own right.

Master Sean is Darcy's technical expert out in the...