Dragon Precinct (DeCandido)

Dragon Precinct , Keith R.A. DeCandido (2004)

I've seen Keith R. A. DeCandido at science fiction conventions, particularly the possibly-defunct Lunacon and the newly-christened Heliosphere. He's had a long career and yet I don't think I've read any of his work before. Maybe a short story in an anthology? Thankfully, I'm remedying this!

I've never read any police procedural novels before that I remember. Mysteries, sure. Stories with cops, sure. But the written equivalent to Law & Order or C.S.I., no. (And for all I know, a different show might be a better analogy.)

This was a fun book to read, with one little caveat. The Prologue introduced a host of characters, one of which, Gan Brightblade, we know will be dead before Chapter 1 even begins. The prologue gave quite a bit of background and introduced a cast of characters of some renown: Gan, the great human fighter; Olthar, the elven wizard who betrayed the Elf Queen; Urbarlig, the dwarf fighter; Bogg, the barbarian; Mari and Nari, twin halfling thieves; and Genero, the human priest, who called them all together.

They arrive in Cliff's End ready to hire a boat to take them to see an old nemesis, whom many believe to be dead. Instead, Gan's neck is broken, unnaturally, in his room. Murder, but not by magical means. This is like the opening scene before the credits.

Where I had a little problem was with the first Chapter. We start in the police precinct with has parallels to a modern police station (as far as I know). Many of the characters for the series are introduced, along with a lot of dropping of place names and history. There wasn't a map to refer to, so I just went with it. Also, using the ebook (for me) is difficult to keep flipping back and forth, so it was a while before I got a handle on which first and last name went with each other.

Anyway (this is for me, this isn't part of a review), the main characters aren't those heroes, but the officers: Danthres Tresyllione is half-elf (hated by both races) and Torin ban Wyvald in human, and they are lieutenants on the Castle Guard. (They have Griffins, not Dragons, on their uniforms.) Two other lieutenants are Dru and Hawk, who are chasing down bad spells sold on the black market. Iaian is a veteran officer, two years from retirement, and he's paired with Grovis, a rookie who fails to be intimidating whenever he tries.

The biggest obstacle to writing a fantasy mystery, similar to science fiction mysteries, is determining what the rules are. In sci-fi, you need to know what tech is available. In fantasy, there's magic. Not a problem here.

There's a magical medical examiner, on loan from the Brotherhood of Wizards, who checks crime scenes for magic use. Oddly here, he doesn't detect any, which makes sneaks sneaking up on such a hero even more unbelievable. So if there is magic being used, it's been covered up expertly.

This was a fun read -- once I got past the first chapter, that is. And I'm glad that I picked up most of the series during a recent $.99 sale by eSpecbooks. (I usually visit their blog more than their homepage.

I'm looking forward to reading more, probably every other ebook I read for a while. (Print books are a separate matter.)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Bedeviled Eggs (Childs)

Image
Bedeviled Eggs Laura Childs (2010) (Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.) This is the third in the series that started with my pandemic book club selection. THe first one was interesting enoug that iI thought I'd try a couple more. This book was not available as an ebook from any of three NYC library systems, so I had to get it as a paperback, just as I did with the previous two. I also got the audiobook, as I did with the last two. It's good to listen to when I'm out for my walks. The usual gang is back. Szanne, the recent widow, and her new boyfriend, Sam the doctor, along with Petra, whose husband is in a medical facility, and Toni, who is still married to Junior. Junior proves to be little more useful in this book. The relationship stays on-again-off-again. I'd imagined Junior as a cross between Jethro Clampett
Read more

Cupcakes, Trinkets, and Other Deadly Magic (Doidge)

Image
Cupcakes, Trinkets, and Other Deadly Magic (The Dowser #1) by Meghan Ciana Doidge (2013) (Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.) I'm pretty sure that this was a freebie in a Book Bub mailing list, but it might've been a random search result when looking for free paranormal cozy mysteries. I don't remember. It was mostly a quick read, and I rushed to finish it because a library book became availalbe and I wasn't go to be able to renew that. As it was, I practically forgot that I'd read it, until I noticed the title again on my phone. (My iPad is loaded with a lot of recent stuff which gets downloaded automatically.) This is the first book in the "Dowser" series. The main character, Jade, is half-witch, half-human, and she knows nothing about her father. Her mother never chose to tell her anything, and sh
Read more

Cibola Burn (Corey)

Image
Cibola Burn by James S. A. Corey (2014) (Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.) I read this nearly a month ago, or at least it seems that way. Once again, I watched the show first which might've made this book go by a little faster. That said, there were enough differences between them. For starters, most of the book takes place on and above the planet Ilus or New Terra, depending upon who's talking. Any of the shows subplots that take place in the Sol system are absent here. There is also some rewriting of settlers. Belters and Outer Planets people (such as refugees from Ganymede) managed to get through the Ring and settled on an inhospitable planet that has a lot of lithium, which they are mining to sell to hire lawyers to stake their claim to "Ilus". They've already been there for a while when a UN/Mars backed
Read more