The Tainted Cup

A political-intrigue mystery drama pursued by a Holmes-and-Watson pair in a speculative Roman-style empire which relies on advanced bio-engineering to fend off a constant flood of Kaiju from the ocean and the contagious bio-horror they bring with them. Which… that might sound like too many concepts to comfortably contain in a story this short, but it all blends together like a perfect smoothie of mystery & adventurous drama — you're simply along for the ride.

I'm reminded of The Affair of the Mysterious Letter, another delightful novel which also uses a Holmes-and-Watson mystery as an excuse to show off wonderful worldbuilding. Perhaps there's a lesson here: if you've invented a weird world but are having trouble fitting a story into it, a Holmes-and-Watson mystery is a great excuse for some characters to wander around all your scenic locales, explaining things to each other and looking closely at all the neat details you want to show off?

This novel absolutely nails it: incredibly fun, readable, & engaging. Nothing wasted, respectful of the reader's time & interest. Absolutely recommended; looking forward to the next installment.

Told from the perspective of a rather stick-in-the-mud assistant investigator to a genius detective who has been banished to the hinterlands for unspecified faux pas against powerful people of the Empire, we follow as their investigation goes from strange to dangerous as it threatens powerful people and the very walls the Empire is founded on.

The primary conceit for the universe he creates this time is that genetic alterations are but a flask of chemicals away and the whole Empire is largely run by various highly modified individuals. The narrator has just been given his first modification, making him an engraver, which means he has perfect memory of anything he views or hears or smells. He is the eyes and ears for the investigator, relaying the physical clues to her from which she deduces the rest.

Strongly recommended read! Really well plotted, great characters and a fascinating world for them to run around and get in trouble in.

The Tainted Cup is an amazing fantasy mystery novel (first in a new series) from Robert Jackson Bennett. For what it's worth, I love love loved The Founders trilogy and quite enjoyed The Divine Cities trilogy so I'm coming into this with some bias.

I've seen this pitched as "Sherlock with kaiju", but I think the Sherlock moniker sells it short for me. The Sherlock / Watson dynamic to me is defined by one where Sherlock is the expert observer, deducer, and dilettante and Watson is the bumbling stand-in for the reader (or at best a medical expert). In The Tainted Cup, I think the sleuthing expertise is split between Kol (the assistant investigator) and Ana (the investigator in charge) and this changes the dynamic entirely in a way that makes the mystery more satisfying structurally. Also, I think personality-wise, they are also quite distinct.

Kol, the point of view assistant investigator, has been biologically modified to have eidectic memory. As he can remember anything he sees, it's his job to be the eyes of the investigator (and also the reader)--viewing crime scenes, talking to witnesses, and poking around to try to dig up as much as he can. Ana, the investigator boss has Sherlockian deductive skill, but whose senses are overwhelmed by the world itself and so stays in her office, relying on Kol to see what's important and bring it back for her to synthesize. There's definitely a power and authority hierarchy here, but what works for me is that Kol's observational competence is strong, and it gives a perfect excuse for the reader to see all of the clues.

I felt like I had put together about half of the mystery myself by the end, but there were still quite a few surprises for me. The closure of the mystery is excellent, and is quite satisfying in the way it brings together every small detail that's been slowly spooled out over time (even, of course, the title). All of this places the book solidly in the mystery genre, rather than just "a fantasy with a murder mystery". It's even complete with a couple of "let me gather everybody to lay out my accusations" style scenes.

But it's the worldbuilding that adds color on top of the solid mystery. The fantasy here is that there this world has experts in biological augmentation, where people are changed to further their station in service of the Empire, often in ways that have negative consequences for them personally. Technologically, things feel like an industrial age that has pursued biological advances rather than gas, such as mushrooms for cooling or worms for lighting. The Empire itself comprises a series of ring walls, where every wet season gigantic titans attack from the sea and must be repelled.

I would have happily read either just a great mystery or a fantasy novel with such an interesting world, but having both together was a delight.

Is this book really 432 pages long? Because I raced through it in a day, and it felt like it moved so quickly! I've always been impressed with RJB's world building, but this one might be my favorite yet. What do we call a world where plants provide light, vines are cultivated to be deadly security systems, the rich can afford large mushrooms that regulate the air temperature, and the murder weapon is a tree? Ugh, I love it. There are also strong notes of the usual "big monsters threaten humanity" suspects - Pacific Rim, Kaiju No. 8, and most evidently Attack on Titan, but this story chooses to move the first responders into the background and spend more time on infrastructure folks and a detective/assistant pair.

And what a stunning pair they are. Fans of the eccentric detective+earnest put-upon assistant, get ready to enjoy yourselves. Ana is a genius in all rights, but never in too much of a magical way that it seems she arrived at her conclusions unfairly. The clues are always available, and I did manage to pick out a couple reveals before they were dropped. As our POV character, Din is easily my favorite - his dedication to justice makes him very easy to cheer for, and I appreciated that he wasn't portrayed as completely brainless.

Despite all the giant monsters attacking in the background, this is a mystery first and foremost, and I appreciate that the narrative commits to this. I suspect that the mystery and the background plot will eventually merge in future books, but for now, I was happy just to read a really solid mystery with some great twists, and a really cool detective.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for an advance copy. All thoughts in this review are my own!