Michael Kurland
Michael Joseph Kurland (born March 1, 1938) is an American author, best known for his works of science fiction and detective fiction. Kurland lives in San Luis Obispo, California.
Writing career
Kurland's early career was devoted to works of sc ...
alternate history
Alternate history (also alternative history, althist, AH) is a genre of speculative fiction of stories in which one or more historical events occur and are resolved differently than in real life. As conjecture based upon historical fact, altern ...
detective Lord Darcy. It was first published in paperback by Ace Books in 1988.
The Lord Darcy stories are set in an alternate world whose history supposedly diverged from our own during the reign of
King Richard the Lionheart
Richard I (8 September 1157 – 6 April 1199) was King of England from 1189 until his death in 1199. He also ruled as Duke of Normandy, Aquitaine and Gascony, Lord of Cyprus, and Count of Poitiers, Anjou, Maine, and Nantes, and was overl ...
, in which King John never reigned and most of western Europe and the Americas are united in an
Angevin Empire
The Angevin Empire (; french: Empire Plantagenêt) describes the possessions of the House of Plantagenet during the 12th and 13th centuries, when they ruled over an area covering roughly half of France, all of England, and parts of Ireland and W ...
whose continental possessions were never lost by that king. In this world a magic-based technology has developed in place of the science of our own world.
The title is an allusion to
Agatha Christie
Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, (; 15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976) was an English writer known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving around fictiona ...
's ''Ten Little Niggers'', also published as ''Ten Little Indians'', a classic of detective literature which is now almost always referred to by its US title, ''
And Then There Were None
''And Then There Were None'' is a mystery novel by the English writer Agatha Christie, described by her as the most difficult of her books to write. It was first published in the United Kingdom by the Collins Crime Club on 6 November 1939, as ...
''.
Plot summary
Someone is killing wizards, and doing so apparently without the use of magic. Lord Darcy is sent to investigate. He must uncover the murderer and ascertain whether the whole business is a ploy to kill the king himself.
To complicate matters Darcy must investigate during the preparations for the investiture of Gwiliam,
Duke of Lancaster
The Dukedom of Lancaster is an English peerage merged into the crown. It was created three times in the Middle Ages, but finally merged in the Crown when Henry V succeeded to the throne in 1413. Despite the extinction of the dukedom the title h ...
(King John IV's younger son), as Prince of Gaul. To add international tension, the Crown Prince of
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...
, His Majesty the King of
Courland
Courland (; lv, Kurzeme; liv, Kurāmō; German and Scandinavian languages: ''Kurland''; la, Curonia/; russian: Курляндия; Estonian: ''Kuramaa''; lt, Kuršas; pl, Kurlandia) is one of the Historical Latvian Lands in western Latvia. ...
(Latvia), will attend the ceremony. (In this timeline, Poland is a great empire ruling most of Eastern Europe, and there is an ongoing
cold war
The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...