I absolutely LOVED this. It was a delight!!

The mystery aspect was really fun and kept me invested, the characters were interesting and unique, the tone and humor were lovely, and the world is masterfully built.

I cannot WAIT to see what the rest of this trilogy brings, especially with where this ended!! So much was tied up but so much was also left open and I am desperate for more content from this world.

The characters are fascinating!! I loved Ana and Kol, but the side characters were neat too.

RJB tends to lean toward science in his novels, and as a science person I love it. His worldbuilding and explanations have such a good sense of logic to them and it’s easy for me to get into the flow of the world. The reveals and twists and plot points fit into this logic so well and I think that’s so cool!! I feel like I’d catch more on reread because I definitely missed some of the foreshadowing and clues.

The creepy plant stuff was so fun. I love creepy plant stuff.

There are clear ties to attack on Titan in this and I loved aot so that’s a win from my perspective. This is a unique twist that utilizes some concepts from aot, so it didn’t feel overdone. There seem to be a lot of anime ties in general (white haired blindfolded character who is super special and good at their job, titans, three walls, etc) which I think is so fun.

All in all - I LOVED this and I highly recommend it!!

This is a wonderful murder mystery. It includes some areas of fantasy that readers will find fascinating. The two main characters are Din and Ana who are tasked with solving the murders. The plot is intricate and keeps readers engaged until the very end. The characters are interesting and the descriptions will give readers a great sense of what they look like. The dialogue is witty and sometimes funny especially between Din and Ana. It is a great story and readers will be surprised by the ending.

The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett was a delightfully fun take on the classic whodunnit with a twinge of sci-fi and magic thrown in the mix. I thought the world building was tastefully done so as the reader was not overwhelmed by this new world, but there is still plenty for the reader to learn and discover in coming books.

This book follows Din an investigator assistant as they attempt to discover who killed a commander using a contagion. The contagion is very, well contagious, and kills by literally growing a tree from the poor saps body. (Pun very intended) We quickly find out that there is corruption and revenge at the heart of the matter resulting in multiple answers to the whodunnit mystery. I loved both Din and the main investigator Ana.

Additional details are posted on my blog which is linked below. https://jewelz93.wixsite.com/found-books/post/the-tainted-cup

If you like a Sherlock Holmes-type mystery within a SFF setting, look no further! This is for you. I wasn't familiar with Robert Jackson Bennett; I picked the book because of its cover (it's so beautiful), plus it's a mystery, so what a treat!
The worldbuilding is spectacular. I could imagine this new world perfectly. I loved the main characters, Ana and Din; their relationship is enjoyable, and I was looking forward to their banter. There are some graphic, gruesome descriptions (during fights or murders), but overall, I manage to keep my food down. So, are you looking for a new world to immerse yourself in? Visit the Empire; you won't regret it.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group—Ballantine for the e-arc.

Thank you to the author, publisher and Net Galley for providing a free e-ARC of this title.

I don't read much fantasy, so I wasn't sure about this title when it was offered by the publisher, but I've heard good things about the author, so I decided to give it a try and I'm glad I did. This didn't feel like high fantasy, just some fantasy elements, and I really enjoyed the book.

3 stars for "I liked it"

3.5 stars, rounded up.

The Tainted Cup is a fantasy murder mystery, set in a world with a complex governing/policing/military structure centered around using plants and the blood of leviathans (think giant monstrous “cosmic horror” creatures) to augment humans.

Things that worked really well: unique “magic” system (again, it’s more like a science that enhances humans to have certain strengths that often align with their professions: super strength, the ability to see in the dark, perfect memory, etc), complex murder plot interwoven with more than a little conspiracy, a main character with dyslexia, casual queerness, and a self-contained story (no cliffhanger, no real unanswered questions, could easily be read as a standalone but still gives us opportunity for more books with these characters). Din (our main character) has the augmentation to give him a perfect memory (what they call being an Engraver), but he’s dyslexic, so any written words he sees shudder and dance and he cannot remember them unless he either reads the words out loud to himself and remembers the sound or traces the letters and remembers the movement. I really liked that his “magic” didn’t negate his disability, and instead he finds and uses a workaround.

Things that didn’t work so well: it took way too long to understand the sociopolitical structure and the Iyalets (the aforementioned governing/policing/military body), we didn’t introduce the plant-based science/magic early enough (everything is plants and I found it very confusing in the beginning), it was a rather slow build (so while I thoroughly enjoyed the second half, the first half took a long time to really take off).

I also loved Foundryside by this author but was thoroughly disappointed by the other two books in that trilogy, so I’ll proceed with caution as the rest of this series gets published.

The Tainted Cup is just a fabulous, fabulous read. I really loved this story, which is Book 1 of the Shadow of the Leviathan series. Robert Jackson Bennett has mastered worldbuilding and penning stories with depth. This novel made me smile so many times, with it's quiet humor slipped in among a very interesting cast of characters trying to solve a great mystery, while under the shadow of destruction. My only quibble is that of COURSE there had to be a gay/fluid? character thrown in, totally unnecessary to the storyline, however quiet and minimal that part of the story line was. Still, I highly recommend this wonderful start to a new series to anyone who loves fantasy/mystery. I enjoyed this story even better than his last Locklands trilogy. Many thanks to NetGalley and Random House/Ballantine for the e-arc. Solid 4 1/2 stars!

This is my first foray into Robert Jackson Bennett, having had some of his novels on my radar for some time. Really enjoyed diving into the world of Daretana, learning about the various cantons (I'm a sucker for a good world map behind the front cover) and the ever impending threat of the Leviathans. I especially enjoyed the banter between Ana and Din, our two main investigators looking into the gruesomely bizarre murder of a high ranking official within the empire. The magic system in the story is also quite easy to follow, and helps develop along various plot points. Overall, I recommend this book for those mystery fans looking for a fantasy twist to their stories. Looking forward to the sequel!

Thanks to NetGalley for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts expressed are my own.

The genre label of fantasy too often brings with it a pre-packaged plot - an epic quest to save the world, a lost noble eager to reclaim their birthright, etc. This is especially frustrating because at its best, fantasy is a mood, a mode of writing, a rich tradition of bright colors and imaginative worlds, a focus on the strange and the truly magical. It should be possible to tell any number of types of stories steeped in the flavor of imaginary worlds. As I’ve written before, too many fantasy is beholden to the Standard Fantasy Setting. But it’s also beholden to the Standard Fantasy Narrative.

Robert Jackson Bennett (author of two recent fantasy trilogies of compelling worlds) begins his newest trilogy with The Tainted Cup, a mystery novel first and foremost; a Sherlockian puzzler set in a genuinely interesting new world, one where an all-powerful Empire keeps its genetically-modified populace safe behind walls, protected from the annual sea-born kaiju attacks. Lots of fantasy series begin with a compelling mystery and then spiral outward to their more sweeping plot, but The Tainted Cup makes sure to keep its central mystery at the heart of the book’s focus, while other, more widespread issues brew in the background.

Our Watsonian protagonist is Din, a taciturn bisexual apprentice investigator augmented to remember everything he experiences, who carries around vials of unique smells to better access the memories down the line. His Sherlockian superior is Ana, an middle-aged woman and genius investigator, with all the required quirks and oddities, like her habit of wearing a blindfold to improve her other senses, her blunt disregard for social norms, and a fascination with psychedelics. She’s also something of a stimulation-avoidant recluse, which results in her sending Din into the belly of the beast to do his own investigation, before reporting back to her with the exacting detail only someone with perfect memory could achieve. Their first case together is the mysterious death of a high-ranking military officer, found in a noble family’s extant villa skewered by rapid-growing, razor-sharp “dapplegrass” that burst through his body. As might be expected, Din and Ana investigating this one murder spirals into a full-blown conspiracy, one that’s remarkably adept at keeping the reader on their toes, providing just the right amount of answers and new questions.

I’m culturally familiar with the Sherlockian mystery format through its adaptations on the screen, but I’ve never read any of the stories, or much in the mystery genre, so take this part with a big helping of salt if you’re a more established reader of the genre. I found the mystery intriguing, but I’m not the type of reader to consciously try to puzzle out the answer. Maybe my general knowledge of storytelling tropes results in me guessing what’s coming next, but it’s never a focused effort. That being said, I let myself be swept up in the ride, and didn’t really guess or predict exactly what happened; because the story is set in a world we don’t know, and Bennett has complete control over what basic information we learn, it’s hard, if not impossible, to guess.

Despite my real admiration and enjoyment of Bennett’s previous works, I do think they are an example of the kind of contemporary SFF that’s exciting in the moment but ultimately hard to remember in retrospect. I can’t quite put my finger on what causes this quality in his writing, because the worlds are unique and the characters are fun and engaging. Maybe it’s just the inevitable consequence of writing books that are so damn fun and go down so easy; they invite a kind of rapid binge-reading that doesn’t tend to engraving the memories of the specifics. Or maybe, it’s just me.

Either way, The Tainted Cup is a fun mystery novel set in a unique fantasy setting, one that takes advantage of its SFF imagination to give its characters supernatural abilities and flaws that result in types of problems and solutions impossible to get in a more realistic novel. The combination of the two genres is what gives the novel its strength, but may prove an obstacle if you only enjoy one of the two. If you like mysteries but not fantasies, you’ll probably bounce of its weird magical world. And if you like fantasies but not mysteries, you’ll be frustrated in how the plot stays focused on the case instead of the weird stuff happening just beyond the edges of the narrative. But if you like both, I’d definitely recommend giving it a read.

The Tainted Cup is set to publish on February 6, 2024. It is the first in an expected trilogy.

There are a few tropes and subgenres that I will always jump at the chance to read and a good fantasy-mystery is one of those things. Much to my delight, The Tainted Cup is a return to the investigative bureaucrat theme that I so loved with City of Stairs. Robert Jackson Bennett has knocked it out of the park with yet another series opener, introducing readers to an incredibly unique fantasy world that begins with gruesome murder.
I think the official synopsis is quite thorough, so I’ll largely skip the usual summary I do and skip straight to the good bits. When Din and Ana are assigned to the murder investigation of an Imperial officer who spontaneously grew a tree, the duo quickly begin to uncover a case much deeper than Din could have ever anticipated. Though the empire they live in is structured and highly centered around the upkeep of the sea walls, there is plenty of room for corruption and graft by the wealthiest families. The crime initially appears to be one of targeted assassination and possibly even domestic terrorism and the investigation takes Ana and Din to the largest city in the next province. Closer to the sea walls, where the horrifying leviathans move toward the sea walls as the rainy season begins.
The foundation that makes for such a darkly engaging story has to be the lush, vegetal world this book is set in. So much of the empire centers around plants - their modification, their ability to mutate and create contagion, and even their heavy use in everyday life for something as simple as building materials. And did I mention the leviathans??? The giant horrors that rumble beneath the sea and move toward the lands of the empire during the rainy season, destroying the sea walls and then the cities beyond. The defense of the land from these unfathomable titans is also a major, grounding feature of this story and makes the murder of the imperial engineers a weighty, significant event meriting this deep dive investigation.
I loved both Din and Ana and the Holmes and Watson vibe mentioned in the synopsis is absolutely spot on. Ana is brilliant, so much so that even leaving her home could overwhelm her mind and cause that sharp mind to cut itself and she’s definitely not above engaging in questionable practices. Din, engraved to have perfect recall, acts as her eyes and ears and does the leg work required on such a complicated case even if that takes him into dangerous territory. The reader is following Din, so I felt the most connected to him and loved that though nervous about screwing up his first ‘real’ assignment, Din wasn’t above a legally gray decision either!
I completely loved the mystery element and I didn’t feel like there was some brilliant, totally unguessable reveal at the end. In hindsight, I felt like there were hints about what was actually going on and who was responsible for the multiple deaths throughout the book. Robert Jackson Bennett didn’t just yank away a table cloth, reveal some unknown killer and wham, magical murder reveal! This was good stuff. There are so many layers to this mystery that just kept getting peeled away until the reveal at the end. I can’t wait to see what cases Ana and Din will tackle next.
Though this doesn’t release until February 2024, I couldn’t resist reading this early and it made my list of Best Books of 2023. I wholeheartedly loved the story for all it was - beautiful, terrifying world, the characters, the compelling mystery plot. This is a book I will be purchasing a physical copy of and I’m hoping The Broken Binding will be doing a special edition because the UK cover is awesome. I can’t recommend this enough - get your pre-orders in so you can jump on the hype train for this expertly plotted Holmesian mystery.

From the author that brought us the incredible The Founders Triolgy we have an amazing great book! Integrating a Sherlock Holmes type mystery within a fantasy setting. As someone who has gotten more into mystery books the past year this hit the spot. This had well developed characters, which i come to expect from Robert Jackson Bennett. I enjoyed the witness of Ana. I really enjoyed the overall premise of this story and really am excited to see what Robert brings us next!

What an excellent book! If the book has a map, I'm going to love it.

I enjoyed many aspects of this book: there was the perfect amount of setting and worldbuilding, giving enough info to follow the story but not too much to get bogged down in history. The characters were all interesting and dynamic - and if there's a Sherlock/Watson parallel going on, I'm sold. Din was such an interesting protagonist, capable in his own right but anxious.

Cannot wait for more installments in this series!

Thank you to NetGalley, Ballantine/Del Rey, and Robert Jackson Bennett for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

"The Tainted Cup" impressed me a lot. It was my first encounter with the author, so I kept my mind open. The first thing that stole my heart is the unique world-building that, so close to our world, has its names and rules. We follow a young apprentice to a slightly eccentric detective who is given a task to solve the murder of some prominent political figure. Of course, the intrigue runs deep and nothing is the way it seems. With Sherlock - Holmes bickering of main characters, and even pacing, I enjoyed this fantasy mystery. Another thing that made me feel at home was narration. The mystery is our main character here. If someone is not a fan of fantasy, this would not stop understanding and enjoying the ride. The scheme is so intricate yet smartly built that I couldn't figure it out on my own - which is a good thing in the end. One last thing: the characters themselves. Our main couple deserves their fandom, mostly because they are so well-built they pop out from a page. The background characters add so much to the story as well. It doesn't happen very often, but they had so much personality that the book would not work at all without them. Despite being out next year (2024 here we come!) it will show up on my top 2023 list.

I do love me a good Robert Jackson Benett book. He always delivers with original and amazing fantasy books, and The Tainted Cup is no exception.

The world building in this book is fantastic, but I didn’t expect otherwise. The characters were well developed, and I loved Ana’s character and her wry, sarcastic banter. And Din, naive guy that he is, really is something.

A fantasy murder mystery that really captures your attention, the writing just flows, the action is well written, and then throw in some monsters, and how can you not love this book?

Another great book from RBJ, I can’t wait to see what next adventure Ana and Din find themselves in. Highly recommend for fantasy fans who like murder mysteries, and seeing them solved Sherlock style.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

3.5 stars

This is a unique blend of fantasy, sci-fi, and mystery, with a Holmes and Watson-style dynamic at the heart of the story. Din is an engraver, someone who has been altered to process and retain information with perfect recall. He's the new apprentice to a rather eccentric and infamous investigator, Ana. When an imperial officer is murdered by a tree exploding from his body, it will take all of their efforts to solve and survive. 

The modifications and powers in this world are a blend of science and magic, and fascinating to read about. Din and Ana travel across cantons, realizing the crime is entrenched in political intricacies and grudges. All the while, the threat of titans breaching the sea wall looms, putting their entire world in jeopardy. 

I love a good murder mystery, and this was an interesting twist on one. Ana's sharp tongue brought hilarious levity to tense scenarios, and Din learning to navigate the intricacies of high society and comply with Ana's investigative demands was charming. I didn't feel a strong connection to the characters or the world, though, and I wasn't able to make many predictions while reading since the reasons for the plots were universe-specific. Everything came together in a way that made sense in the end, but I felt less engaged than I otherwise might in a story where I could theorize. While the premise was really interesting, I don't think this story will stick with me. Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for an advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

Personally, this book took me a couple of chapters to get into the groove of the verbiage, and a couple of more to think “I can finish this.” Then a couple of more, I was hooked and didn’t want to put a paise on finding out what happened, whodunnit and the truth.

This felt like a procedural detective story that is submerged in a fictional world of magic further complicated by greed and politics. I enjoyed watching their world unfold with the turn of each page. I feel like if I said anymore out this book, it’s a spoiler and I don’t enjoy spoiling things for others. But if you enjoy Sherlock and Watson (think Cumberbatch version but with a more naive Watson), this is a great choice. If you also love fantasy or want a way to get into the genre, this is a great pick! Also, a very MINOR romantic relationship included.

Bottom line, I highly agree with the hype that I have seen on bookstagram about this book! It was a great book and recommend it to all! Thank you NetGalley and Del Rey for allowing to read this.

This was a great book. The mystery was excellent and the fantasy elements made it feel fresh and different. I think Robert Jackson Bennett created such a good atmosphere here, you could feel the muggy, damp weather.

Ana and Din were a good Sherlock and Watson pair and I liked how their interactions were handled. Ana could have overwhelmed the story with her deductions, but these were used in a way that were amusing and helpful in moving the plot forward.

My only small complaint is the pacing seemed slow which made the book feel longer than it was. I was still engaged and interested the entire time, so it didn’t bother me too much. I’m looking forward to seeing what comes next for these characters.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

A gorgeous, brilliant story that seamlessly marries the very best parts of a Golden Age of detective fiction mystery with a fresh, inventive fantasy world. I love mysteries, and I love fantasy, but I never really thought of them being combined in this ‘who got chocolate in my peanut butter’ fashion - but I have to say that I ADORED every word and every page of this book. It held my attention in a vise grip the entire time and I can’t wait for another installment.

The story and characters give you all the notes that you would want from a detective novel, and yet they arrive in such fresh, unexpected ways thanks to the unique world and the way they’re crafted that they feel utterly fresh. Yes, a brilliant and eccentric lead detective with a compelling novice partner with his own backstory obviously conjures Holmes and Watson… and yet Ana and Kol are absolutely their own characters and are so engaging that I stopped comparing them after a few chapters. The supporting cast also felt rich and fully realized. The world Robert Jackson Bennet has built here is also so fascinating and I desperately want to know more about it. I believe this is the first in a series of three and I’m excited for the next one.

Thanks so much to Del Ray and NetGalley for a sneak peak!

I’ve come to expect mind-blowing originality from Bennett, but this book exceeded my high expectations. It’s an intricate murder mystery set in a fantasy world with hints of Ancient Rome and a whole lot of innovative magic as people struggle to survive in a setting with aggressive worms, plants, and city-sized titans. The politics are about as nasty as the monstrous elements, too. Quite honestly, this is one of the best books I’ve read this year.

This was a bit of complicated read for me, because it took me a while to get into it and there were several times when I thought about def'ing The Tainted Cup, but I'm glad I persisted and kept with it after all. It starts out really slow, where the reader is thrown into the middle of a crime scene, which might not seem as very complicated or unusual, but that perception would probably change when you understand that the world where our characters live is completely different from ours. A lot of humans are sort of like mutants - they possess additional qualities (mostly physical, but can be mental too) which enhance their abilities. The locations and even month names - this surprised me the most as I don't think I've ever read a book, where these names were changed to something else - are different, as well as the hierarchy of the people that live in the empire. Our main character is Dinios Kol, an assistant to the investigator and an engraver, magically altered to possess a perfect memory. There is also Ana Dolabra, an investigator, who is quite eccentric in the way she does her work, but brilliant at the same time. This duo is as strange as it might sound, but somehow, their dynamic is charming and is probably the main thing that encouraged me to stay with this novel.

As for the pace of the book, although the plot becomes more interesting after you finally start to understand how this world works, for me, felt way too slow and I eagerly waited for all the events and mysteries to be explained sooner than later. This is why it felt like a drag to go through the first half of the book, because I think it really picked up after that. However, I liked the author's writing style and thought that he created an exceptional world, which could be great starting point for the future novels in this series. I also liked the fact, that all questions that I had while reading this, have been answered by the end of the book and little clues that Bennett left throughout the novel, came together quite nicely. I would be interested to continue with this series as I quite enjoyed reading from Dinios perspective and found him more unique than a lot of other protagonists that I've encountered in other books I've read.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinions!