Griffen McCandles Books in Order

The Griffen McCandles series is Robert Asprin's late-career move into urban fantasy, and it fits him surprisingly well. It has hidden supernatural politics, quick banter, hustlers who survive by thinking on their feet, and a setting that does half the storytelling just by being itself.

Griffen McCandles begins as a talented card player and low-level con artist who expects ordinary family problems after college. Instead, he learns that he and his sister Valerie are dragons. That one revelation changes the scale of everything. Suddenly money, reputation, danger, and even family history all mean something different.

The books are set in New Orleans, especially around the French Quarter, and the city is more than backdrop. It shapes the mood of the whole series. Griffen moves through gambling rooms, tourist crowds, side alleys, odd little power centers, and old local networks where dragon business and human business keep crossing over.

What carries the series from book to book is not a single prophecy or quest. It is Griffen trying to build a life while he figures out what kind of dragon, and what kind of leader, he wants to be. He has to manage threats from other dragons, protect the people around him, and keep his own operation from collapsing under pressure.

The tone stays lively. These are not bleak books. Even when violence or betrayal enters the picture, Asprin keeps the focus on personality, problem-solving, and the comedy of being in over your head. If you like modern fantasy with organized-crime energy, family complications, and a hero who wins as often with nerve as with power, this series has a lot of charm.