THE TAINTED CUP - Robert Jackson Bennett


Robert Jackson Bennett is easily one of my favorite authors currently writing in the sf/f field. His world-building is strong, detailed, and comes across so very real. His stories are complex and while not always described, there is clearly history and future to the current events. And his characters are unique and admirable for their honesty and directness.

In The Tainted Cup, Bennett departs just a little from his The Divine Cities trilogy and The Founders trilogy. The previous trilogies are definitely fantasies - high, dark, intricate.  This, while still in a very Robert Jackson Bennett world, is first a murder mystery, and second a fantasy.

Dinios Kol is the new assistant (an engraver who has been magically altered via Leviathan blood, to have a perfect memory) to investigator Ana Dolabra. Ana's abilities are rivaled only by her eccentricities and few people want to be around her, much less act as her assistant. But the relationship between Dinios and Ana seems to be working well, though Dinios worries that if his boss ever discovered his secret being fired would be the least of his worries.

A number of deaths have occurred on the same day, but they all seem connected to the very unusual death of a High Imperial Officer, found dead in a well-fortified mansion/home of the district's wealthier citizens.  His being there wasn't unusual - he would often stay there when in the area.  But the nature of his death is unusual (even in an area rife with plagues and magic) ... a tree has sprouted from his body, inside the home.

Dinios will study and record his impressions from the scene (no easy task, given the cold reception he gets from the home's owner) and deliver his impressions to Ana. Ana, who doesn't leave the confines of her home and often wears one or more blindfolds in order to keep her other sense more vibrant, will sort Dinios' information to determine the killer.

The mystery here is solid, but really it's the characters, specifically Dinios and Ana, who really make this worthwhile (which is often true with a mystery series). It's not just their unique personalities, but the 'gifts' or abilities they've acquired, that make them fun to read.  In this way, the world this is set in is so very integral to who the characters are, and again ... Bennett excels at world-building.

I hope that this is a long-running series and not just a trilogy. Dinios and Ana are a great pair and the revelation at the end (and the response to it) just makes me that much more eager to get in to the next 'The Shadow of the Leviathan' book.

Looking for a good book? Robert Jackson Bennett pens a top-notch mystery in a fantasy world that only he could create in The Tainted Cup giving us a tremendous reading experience.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

5 stars

* * * * * *

The Tainted Cup

author: Robert Jackson Bennett

series: The Shadow of the Leviathan #1

publisher: Del Rey

ISBN: 9781984820709

hardcover, 432 pages

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