Robert Jackson Bennett, Quill to Live favorite, is back with a brand new series about a pair of detectives in a world threatened by enormous sea monsters. The Tainted Cup is the first book of the Shadow of the Leviathan series and it is overflowing with dark, damp, leafy mysteries. These shadowy secrets contrast perfectly with the vibrant warm cast, all of which have full rich personalities that shine like beacons in this terrifying and stressful world. To top it all off, the beating heart of this story is a murder mystery in the style of Holmes and Watson. All of Bennett’s stories have featured delightful mysteries, but The Tainted Cup finally takes them and puts them on center stage.
So what is The Tainted Cup about? Well for one, a horrifying murder in an opulent mansion. With seemingly no warning, a high Imperial officer lies dead when a tree spontaneously erupts from his body. This is greatly surprising to everyone, but not as surprising as it could be. This world is one of alchemy and biomancy, where people from many walks of life get grafts to alter their bodies for jobs, combat, and pleasure. Grafts fundamentally change your biology, granting you things like super strength, eidetic memory, or academic aptitudes. But, even knowing all that, a tree exploding out of someone is a mystery. It likely is a deadly contagion; alchemy gone rogue or the blood of the Leviathans working strange magical changes. Oh did I not mention the Leviathans?
Society at large in this world is structured around fighting an endless stream of gigantic sea Leviathans. One season a year, they try to push their way up into the central area of the Empire, and each year the army and engineers of the empire repel them. But, every year the Leviathans seem to get bigger and harder to repel – thus the grafts of the Empire must get stronger to combat them. Anyway back to the mystery: called in to investigate is the brilliant and eccentric Ana Dolabra. At her side is her new assistant, Dinios Kol. Din is an engraver, magically grafted to possess a perfect memory. Due to some complications on Ana’s part, most of the sleuthing is done by Din and most of the solving is done by Ana. It’s a pairing that works incredibly well in the format of the story, as we spend all of our time in the fabulous mind of Din as he feeds information to Ana who slowly pieces together what happened.
As always with Bennett’s work, the characters are a great time. The setting is so bleak and upsetting that they really stand out against the dark. Din and Ana have great chemistry and their back-and-forth dialogue is witty and fun. The myriad of support/suspects are all dramatic and interesting, each possessing secrets that must be uncovered. Each character has their own little quirks and personalities, but they all feel like they contain a heaviness that just pervades the story. These are people who live in constant fear of immediate violent death at the hands of forces they can barely fight or control and it shows in the traumas and coping mechanisms of the people who inhabit this world. Some have vices that are disastrous toward just themselves, and others (like the rich) have crutches that are a problem for everyone. But, it wouldn’t be a Bennett novel if the rich weren’t being super problematic and I am here for it.
Speaking of great pervasive ideas in The Tainted Cup, the themes are absolutely on point. There are a number of central ideas in this story and they all feel like they pop out with clever insights through attention to detail on Bennett’s part. The biggest theme is around cause and effect, or how changes in an ecosystem have larger magnified effects. Grafts change your biology and can cause huge unexpected changes in the body. Biologically modified flora and fauna in the series are carefully studied before they are introduced to the wild. This is because previous less controlled experiments and changes to the world reaped horrifying results and untold deaths. The Leviathans themselves represent enormous mobile ecological disasters. Killing one saves the Empire from being run over, but even in death the Leviathans decompose and release alchemical agents that alter the land in wild ways. The Empire has entire military divisions for the study of ecological and alchemical change. There is a real scientific vibe throughout every one of the characters involved.
The mystery itself is enjoyable, but I think it could have been slightly grander given the focus of the book on investigation. A large portion of the book is devoted to establishing how people live under the Leviathans and it pulls the focus away from the case a bit. Yet, this presented more time for character introspection which was the best part of the book. Given that this is clearly supposed to be a mystery series I was hoping for who-dun-it to be slightly more interesting, but it’s still pretty great so I have very little to complain about. The Tainted Cup itself is a very well-contained story but is clearly planting seeds for a larger series spanning mystery. Although the first book stands well on its own, it does feel a bit like the tip of an iceberg and it left me wanting to read the next installment immediately.
As always, the Bennett trademarks are here. 1) a wonderful world that blends fantasy and modern society to create a place that feels like I could live without it being urban fantasy. 2) Deeply visceral action and a nice helping of horror mix into the story to make the entire experience of reading the book feel constantly edge-of-the-seat. 3) Characters you adore will shatter your heart at an unspecified future point in the story. 4) It is full of smart commentary on current society–generally reflecting worker class dissatisfaction with how the elite rip all the resources from the world and leave our children a burning husk to live on. So, great times all around.
The result of all of this is another banger of a first book in a series that will likely rate among my favorites. It is a safe bet that The Tainted Cup will be one of the best books this year and I wholeheartedly recommend it. I have only known Din and Ana for about a week and if anything bad happens to them I will be sending a very strongly worded letter to Bennett. Anyway, read this book, it won’t disappoint.
Rating: The Tainted Cup – 9.5/10
-Andrew
An ARC of this book was provided to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The thoughts on this book are my own.
Thank you – a new RJB story is always welcome, isn’t it? And a new “universe” too, yay (although after what he did to Sancia and Berenice and Clef I didn’t think there would be any more options in their world…)