Thursday, October 24, 2024

The Tainted Cup - Robert Jackson Bennett

    2024; 406 pages.  Book 1 (out of 1) in the “Shadow of the Leviathan” series.  New Author? : Yes.  Genres : Intrigue; Epic Fantasy, Murder-Mystery.   Overall Rating: 9½/10.

 

    Taqtasa Blas, one of the Commanders of the Engineers, has met a gruesome end.  You can read about it in the first excerpt below.  The “how” is easily determined – exposure, either through ingestion or inhalation, to the malignant blooms of the dappleglass.  It appears there is a murderer afoot. 

 

    Interestingly, ten other engineers also perished recently from dappleglass poisoning.  But they were nowhere near Blas, and they died at somewhat different moments, which indicates they weren’t all infected at a single time and place.

 

    Iudex Inspector Ana Dolabra has been assigned to the case, along with her assistant, Dinios “Din” Kol.  Their task is to figure out who the poisoner, or poisoners, were, and when and where those lethal doses were administered.

 

    But Ana is a topnotch investigator.  She intends to also find out who hired the poisoner(s), which will answer the question of why someone wanted so badly to kill a bunch of engineers.  Good luck on that quest, Ana.

 

What’s To Like...

    The Tainted Cup is an epic fantasy tale set in the Holy Empire of Khanum.  Ana and Din are emissaries of its ruler, the Conzulate, but they are a long way from the capital city, Imperial Sanctum.  Khanum is a hierarchal society where one’s rank is of utmost importance.  Ana’s and Din’s loyalties will be tested, but this is also true for those whom they will question about Blas’s murder.

 

    Our two protagonists reminded me muchly of Arthur Conan Doyle’s heroes.  Din assumes the role of scribe, chronicling the events like Dr. Watson did for Sherlock Holmes.  Ana has some remarkable deductive talents, just like Sherlock, and uses some quirky habits, including most of the time interacting while blindfolded, to better “read” the tones and nuances of witnesses’ testimony.

 

    Din himself has some special talents as well.  He’s an “engraver”, which means he has eidetic memory, which in turn means he is the perfect set of eyes and ears to witness events and to “record and playback” testimony.  And unlike the usually clueless Dr. Watson, Din frequently injects biting sarcasm into his snappy remarks, even when conversing with his boss, Ana.

 

    The action starts immediately with Ana and Din arriving at the manor where the remains of Taqtasa Blas repose.  The servants there seem to be covering something up, but what?  From there the case quickly gets more complicated as additional bodies are found.  The worldbuilding overall is superb, with Robert Jackson Bennett deftly blending it into the storyline, yet somehow avoiding bogging things down with long descriptions.

 

    The ending is how I like them: tense and exciting, with lots of twists, yet quite logical.  All the murders are solved, and both Ana and Din reveal personal secrets to each other.  It is obvious that they are going to be a formidable investigative team for the Conzulate of Khanum.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.6*/5, based on 3,017 ratings and 463 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.69*/5, based on 22,048 ratings and 4,903 reviews.

 

Things That Sound Dirty, But Aren’t…

    “Pick a glass and stick it up your damn nose quick!”

 

Excerpts...

    The most remarkable feature of the room was the clutch of leafy trees growing in the center—for it was growing from within a person.

    Or rather, through a person.

    The corpse hung suspended in the center of the bedchamber, speared by the many slender trees, but as Otirios had said it was initially difficult to identify it as a body at all.  A bit of torso was visible in the thicket, and some of the left leg.  What I could see of them suggested a middle-aged man wearing the purple colors of the Imperial Engineering Iyalet.  The right arm was totally lost, and the right leg had been devoured by the swarm of roots pouring out from the trunks of the little trees and eating into the Stonewood floor of the chamber.

    I stared into the roots.  I thought I could identify the pinkish nub of a femur amid all those curling coils.  (pg. 9)

 

    “The number of people holding a grudge against the Hazas is beyond count.”

    “Might you also count among that company, ma’am?” I asked.

    She raised her eyebrows at me behind her blindfold.  “My, my.  That’s rather insolent of you, isn’t it?”

    “I would simply note, ma’am, that Vashta just referenced your old grudges with them.”

    “A rumor,” she said dismissively.

    “And you also once said of the Hazas—I wouldn’t mind seeing all their progeny rotting in the ground like a bunch of f**king dead dogs.  Which is, I feel, mostly how one talks of one’s enemies.”

    “Oh, yes, well,” she said, sighing.  “This is why people are so loath to talk before an engraver. . .They never forget a f**king thing you say!”  (pg. 241)

 

“What a tool cynicism is to the corrupt, claiming the whole of creation is broken and fraudulent, and thus we are all excused to indulge in whatever sins we wish.”  (pg. 286)

    There’s quite a bit of profanity – 22 instances in the first 10%, seven of which were f-bombs.  Later on, “localized” expletives were used—“by the Harvester” and “by the titan’s unholy taint”—which I always like.  I don’t recall any adult situations, but homophobes beware, a gay relationship is alluded to.

 

    I didn’t note any typos at all.  Kudos to the editors.

 

    For me, The Tainted Cup was a captivating first book in a series, with fantastic world-building, mystery-composing and witty interactions.  My only gripe is that the second book, A Drop of Corruption, won’t be released until next April.  I have very little patience when I’m forced to be patient.

 

    9½ Stars.  One last thing.  Here’s hoping that the next book’s cover includes a drawing of the main creature in this story, the leviathan.  It has a major impact on the storyline, periodically comes out of the sea, and wreaks havoc on the human coastal bulwarks, even when the humans are tipped off that it’s on its way.  Yet I don’t recall it ever being described. Is it a giant whale-like beast?  Inquiring minds want to know.

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