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| The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennet |
The Tainted Cup starts the Shadow of the Leviathan series of fantasy mysteries. As always, Jackson Bennet has created a wonderfully innovative world that isn’t a mere backdrop but an integral part of the story, and characters that the reader can root for.
The story is set in a vast empire lined by the sea at one edge, where each wet season huge leviathans try to enter the land, kept at bay by a wall. All the efforts of the empire, especially the military, is directed at protecting the people from these creatures. But they’re useful too, as their blood is used for modifying and genetically manipulating everything from people to animals and plants.
Dinios Kol is an engraver, a person whose brain has been altered to remember absolutely everything. He’s been assigned as an assistant to Ana Dolabra, a criminal investigator banished to a tiny village near the sea. She’s susceptible to outward stimulus and goes blindfolded most of the time. And she never visits the crime scenes herself. That’s why she has Kol.
A puzzling murder has happened in a manor of one of the most influential families in the empire. A tree has burst from inside a visiting military officer. The crime doesn’t take Dolabra long to figure out, but then there turns out to be more of these murders, which takes the pair to the town nearest to the seawall where the military is preparing for the wet season.
This was an excellent book and an intriguing mystery. Told from the point of view of Dinios Kol, the mystery deepens and its scope widens at every turn. He’s the perfect protagonist for the story, curious, single-minded and persistent. With his ability to remember everything, he conducts a steady investigation. But solving the crime is left for his boss. She’s a Sherlock Holmes type of person who makes huge deductive leaps that leave others puzzled, the reader included. But she definitely finds the truth in the end.
It's also a warning about the human manipulation of nature. At every turn, the story relies on the consequences of altering the people and the nature, and the toll of the endless war against the leviathans. I have a notion they’ll turn out to be both more important and less destructive than the people believe.
Despite the gruesome nature of the murders, the story has a cozy feel to it. Kol goes about his investigation, making friends and finding new things about himself and his abilities. There’s even a bit of romance for him, if too briefly. The ending sends the pair for more adventures. I hope there will be an entire series of the two solving crimes around the empire.
I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
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