Muckraker: Darrell the Dumpster-Diving Dandy 19XP

Darrell is a versatile investigator, and I feel he's like a Rorschach test. People have their own inclinations about what they like in his access, and Darrell lets them try that.

Here's my take on the established Scavenging/Ice Pick combo that has some fun imagining Darrell as a muckraker who uses well-placed insiders to get at people's dirty secrets. He isn't above breaking and entering to get the scoop, and when caught he fast-talks his way out of confrontations,

Dumpster Diving for Fun & Profit: Main theme here is to investigate, over-succeed, and get free item draw + free play via Scavenging. Schoffner's Catalogue helps pay for the items and is a part of the loop. The primary item is Ice Pick, but there are 4 other useful items: Eon Chart, Fine Clothes, Scroll of Secrets, and Talisman of Protection.

Trash? More Like Treasure! Short Supply starts you with some cards already in discard to give you targets for free draw/free play. It's likely (54%) that at least one of your weaknesses will be there, which is nice! There's also a chance that the critical card Scavenging is there, so we run two of them and a Resourceful to prevent that situation from ruining your concept before you've had a chance to start! If you end up with both in play that's great because it exhausts. The level 0 version can be used for Fast items and the level 2 version for the other items.

So Many Clues, So Little Set-Up: You can right-size your clue-finding with Ice Pick, Sharp Vision, and Deduction for the amount of clues at your location. While there are a lot of items in the deck you don't need any of them to dive right into the clues. It's nice to have Ice Pick and Scavenging but certainly not vital.

Snappy Dresser, Also Snaps Orders: Use Persuasion + Fine Clothes + evidence to talk your way out of fighting. If you don't have that set up you'll have to resort to your fight-or-flight instinct

Evidence Is Irrefutable: You have 3 items that accumulate evidence tokens. Your uses for them are free card draw and reducing test difficulty.

When Failure Isn't an Option: Between Gumption and evidence tokens, you can reduce important tests from 4 to 0 (6 to 0 for parley with the Fine Clothes) which means only the can make you fail. There's even a copy of Live and Learn for that eventuality.

Perks of Being In the News Biz: Free movement, free money, more free money, free actions, free card draw, more free card draw and of course free draws and plays

Be Careful With Your Sources Mr Rook is a great way to surface cards you need, but he risks triggering your signature weakness. So wait until it's been discarded (or you have evidence to spare) before using his searches.