Robert Jackson Bennett has been blurring the genre lines since his first novels published a little over a decade ago (Mr. Shivers, 2010; The Company Man 2011, etc). His latest novel, The Tainted Cup (February 2024) which launches The Shadow of the Leviathan series, is no exception. It is a murder mystery set in a world characterized by unique magic and a very different landscape than our own. If for nothing else, Leviathans – giant monsters from under the sea –threaten the sanctity of life in Empire of Khanum.
In Daretana’s greatest mansion, a high imperial officer lies dead—killed, to all appearances, when a tree erupted from his body. Even here at the Empire’s borders, where contagions abound and the blood of the leviathans works strange magical changes, it’s a death both terrifying and impossible.
Assigned to investigate is Ana Dolabra, a detective whose reputation for brilliance is matched only by her eccentricities. Rumor has it that she wears a blindfold at all times, and that she can solve impossible cases without even stepping outside the walls of her home.
At her side is her new assistant, Dinios Kol, magically altered in ways that make him the perfect aide to Ana’s brilliance. Din is at turns scandalized, perplexed, and utterly infuriated by his new superior—but as the case unfolds and he watches Ana’s mind leap from one startling deduction to the next, he must admit that she is, indeed, the Empire’s greatest detective.
As the two close in on a mastermind and uncover a scheme that threatens the Empire itself, Din realizes he’s barely begun to assemble the puzzle that is Ana Dolabra—and wonders how long he’ll be able to keep his own secrets safe from her piercing intellect.
By an “endlessly inventive” (Vulture) author with a “wicked sense of humor” (NPR), The Tainted Cup mixes the charms of detective fiction with brilliant world-building to deliver a fiendishly clever mystery that’s at once instantly recognizable and thrillingly new.
The novel begins, as many murder mysteries do, with a dead body. But this body has expired under extremely strange circumstances – a tree has spontaneously grown out of the body. Complicating matters is the fact that this is no ordinary body, it is Commander Blas, a leading figure in the military of Khanum. Ana Dolabra is the lead investigator, but she sends her assistant Dinios Kol to the scene of the crime. Kol is new to the role, but his enhanced memory gives him total recall, which makes him a great assistant to the extremely reclusive and quirky Ana Dolabra. Kol also happens to be the point of view character and narrator. A “quirky, but brilliant” detective/investigator whose assistant has boundless patience to deal with the investigator gives us Robert Jackson Bennett’s homage to Holmes & Watson. In Bennett’s hands and with his intelligent writing, plotting, dialogue and inventive worldbuilding, the ingredients are there for a terrific novel.
There is a subtlety to how Jackson has built the world of this novel, he peppers in details throughout the novel giving a nice flavor of a world quite unlike our own. The Empire of Khanum is a very old land, the “Khanum” who founded the empire are long gone, yet their influence absolutely remains. Biological magic fuels the entire world, like mushroom air purifiers or genetic enhancements that provider people, like Kol, with perfect memory. One of the downsides of this world of magic is the wet season when the Leviathans rise and potentially make landfall and try to destroy the land. The other downside is that playing with magic, particularly magic involving living things like plant life, can be extremely dangers, as Commander Blas discovered – and he was just the first.
As it so happens, the murder of Commander Blas happened at the start of wet season with the leviathans knocking on the proverbial door of the Empire. How these two events are linked is what Kol and Ana need to determine before the leviathans break through the defenses of the Empire and destroy all in their path.
Bennett has a knack for writing witty, snarky dialogue and that carries on through in this novel, especially the character of Ana. She is a woman who gives zero “figs” if you catch my meaning. She’s the smartest person in the room – any room and even if she’s not in the room – and she knows it. Her brashness is balanced out very nicely by her assistant Kol, who has a very dry, dead pan delivery.
I suppose if you want a high-concept mashup of recognizable elements, you’ve got Sherlock Holmes in a world with magic that is somewhat reminiscent of the spores of The Last of Us or the plants of Batman villain Poison Ivy all under threat from creatures out of Pacific Rim with a plot that favorably draws comparison to Knives Out. That’s a lot of disparate elements, but Robert Jackson Bennett pulls it all together as these elements were meant to come together.
I missed Locklands, the last book of Bennett’s Founders Trilogy so I am very, very happy to be reacquainted with his work after that small gap. I’m reminded of what an incredible writer and storyteller Robert Jackson Bennett is. The Tainted Cup is a wonderful novel whose pull to keep the pages turning comes from the great plot, inventive world, and fascinating characters.
Highly Recommended
© 2024 Rob H. Bedford
Del Rey| Hardcover
February 2024 | 432 Pages
https://www.robertjacksonbennett.com/ | Twitter: @robertjbennett
Review copy courtesy of the publisher
