I picked this collection up at my local used bookstore and was thrilled with it. The stories are fantasy/mystery/private detective stories and I liked them so much I tracked down the other two books in the series. I'm looking forward to spending more time with Fanuilh and Liam.
If I had to pick a favorite book, this would be it. It's a set of three books: Fanuilh, Wizard's Heir, and Beggar's Banquet. The main character, Liam, solves crimes/mysteries and it's all in a fantasy setting (as implied by the title). I've read them over and over again and they never get old.
I had read some of the Fanuilh books many years ago--apparently the first, fourth and fifth book, because the second two stories in this collection were completely unfamiliar. The first book in particular was a little awkward. There was a lot of strained phrasing where I felt like the author was just missing the intent he was trying for. The second two books were much smoother reads.
Unfortunately I don't feel like any of the characters in the stories are particularly interesting. I don't much like Liam and Fanuilh is very wooden. The Aedile and Mopsa are slightly more interesting characters, but they are still fairly two dimensional.
Overall, the books are reasonably good and were a nice little way to pass my lunch hours and a couple of evenings.
It took me just over nine months to finish this book, and considering the relatively large number of other books I read during that time I think that says a lot. I found this three book collection very lackluster. Number one was okay, but it went downhill from there. I didn't connect with any of the characters and found our protagonist, Liam, particularly boring. No idea why I bothered to finish this.
This series has become one of my all time favorites. It reads like a murder mystery, but it has magical elements. It is in a medieval setting, and the murders all involve magic. The lead character, Liam Rhenford, is not a magician but he has inherited the possesions of a wizard who was murdered, including his familiar, a miniature dragon named Fanuilh.