“Oh, you’ve always got to smile a little, Din… Even during, you know, the abysmally fucking awful times.”
ARC provided by Del Rey Books in exchange for an honest review.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett is my first five-star review of 2024. When I requested this book for review, I only went into it with a few details in mind: A murder mystery set in an original fantasy world. That doesn’t even begin to describe what Bennett has to offer.
In Daretana’s most opulent mansion, a high Imperial officer lies dead—killed, to all appearances, when a tree spontaneously erupted from his body. Even in this canton at the borders of the Empire, where contagions abound and the blood of the Leviathans works strange magical changes, it’s a death at once terrifying and impossible.
Called in to investigate this mystery is Ana Dolabra, an investigator whose reputation for brilliance is matched only by her eccentricities.
At her side is her new assistant, Dinios Kol. Din is an engraver, magically altered to possess a perfect memory. His job is to observe and report, and act as his superior’s eyes and ears–quite literally, in this case, as among Ana’s quirks are her insistence on wearing a blindfold at all times, and her refusal to step outside the walls of her home.
Din is most perplexed by Ana’s ravenous appetite for information and her mind’s frenzied leaps—not to mention her cheerful disregard for propriety and the apparent joy she takes in scandalizing her young counterpart. Yet as the case unfolds and Ana makes one startling deduction after the next, he finds it hard to deny that she is, indeed, the Empire’s greatest detective.
As the two close in on a mastermind and uncover a scheme that threatens the safety of 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.
The Tainted Cup was a story that had perfect timing for me. I was falling back into the murder mystery universe, complete with my Agatha Christie collection and movies of Hercule Poirot, and I was looking for something else to keep me anchored in the genre. This book supplied that and more.
It seems bizarre to describe this book as a blend of Attack on Titan, The Last of Us, Knives Out, and even Pacific Rim, but it’s a mixture that works, and it’s utterly delicious. If you’re looking for unique fantasy, killer plants, big monsters, and a fun murder mystery, The Tainted Cup is a must-buy.
The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett releases on February 6, 2024.