The Tainted Cup - Robert Jackson Bennett

Maybe I just haven't read enough fantasy novels - I know I haven't - but other than one book I've come across (Justin Somper's Allies and Assassins), it strikes me that no-one has really exploited the idea of an investigative team within a fantasy realm. It's all the more surprising as Robert Jackson Bennett shows how much fun this can be when you have to imagine the kind of crimes that can take place in a world that doesn't conform to the one we are familiar with. There are endless possibilities that are laid out well in the first of his Shadow of the Leviathan series, one that will be built upon in subsequent books. 

The Tainted Cup, book one of the series, introduces us to the Empire of Khanum. It's a dangerous place, constantly under threat from leviathans, unimaginably huge sea creatures that in the wet season approach the Outer Rim of the Empire and threaten to breach the sea walls built for protection. There is another immediate and unusual problem in the Outer Rim region of Daretana: the death of Commander Taqtasa Blas, who has died in horrific circumstances when a tree - a huge clutch of trees in fact - appears to have sprouted from within, impaling him from the inside. Considering contagions are a great risk in the Empire, there has been some form of corruption here, but enough strangeness to the circumstances to suggest that it's been a planned murder.

Immunis Anagosa Dolabra, a Iudex Investigator of the backwater Daretana Canton sends her Assistant Investigator Signum Dinios Koi to carry out the initial investigations and conduct interviews with staff at the estate where the death took place. The Iudex are the imperial administration for justice and the courts and Din is a Sublime, cerebrally suffused and augmented to be an engraver, which means he has undergone alteration in order to be able to remember everything he experienced and able to recall it in minute detail. He doesn't miss much - doesn't miss anything obviously - but it's his eccentric boss Ana who is able to bring her unusual experience and talent to interpret and - although often wearing a blindfold to help her focus - is able to see and analyse what others would miss. She quickly establishes how the crime was committed, but at this stage is not able to understand why or who carried out the killing.

There is clearly more to the case than thought and alarm bells start to ring - not just metaphorically - when there is an unexpected breach in the sea wall at Talagray just as a leviathan is approaching, the wall weakened by a spontaneous eruption of trees sprouting from ten Engineers. Having some experience recently of the event with Commander Blas, Ana and Din are invited to join a high ranking Iudex team charged with discovering what is going on. There are a lot of information to gather and people to interview, not to mention a potentially very dangerous character who may be behind it all. Unfortunately, having not yet completed his apprenticeship, Din is armed with nothing more than a practice sword of lead and wood.

Obviously that's just the start to a rather more complex case and there are of course many more unusual features to be revealed about how the Empire and its Iaylets work. Trying to find someone who appears to be intent on destroying it in what looks like an act of terrorism seems to be as good a way as any of finding out some of the peculiarities of this society and its levels of power.  There are clearly other ways of using alterations and contagions to cause havoc and devastation, such as the dapplegrass outbreak that wiped out a whole canton. Without knowing the nature of the culprit, their motivations or where they might even reside Ana and Din have some investigation to do, and many other obstacles in their way. Since there are few they can trust and there is a suspicion that some among the high ranks of the Empire know more than they are letting on.

The Tainted Cup is a murder mystery in a fantasy realm then, which is an entertaining enough concept, but the success of the book - and the series - lies in how richly the peculiarities, organisational structures and behaviours of this world are depicted. More than that however it's the two principal characters who are key to it being as entertaining at it is. We get the first person viewpoint of Din, his inexperience, his concerns, his extraordinary abilities and his insecurities and failings, all of which are a fantastic counterfoil for Ana Dolabra and her Sherlock Holmes like insights and behaviours, not to mention her irreverent and amusing use of profanities. It's a brilliant team, a wonderful creation in a compelling read that you just know is going to get even better as we delve deeper into the Empire of Khanum.

Reading notes: The Tainted Cup: Book 1 of Shadow of the Leviathan by Robert Jackson Bennett is published by Del Rey in hardcover and Hodderscape in paperback in the UK. I read a Kindle edition. The first book in the series was published in 2024. I'm coming late to the series, which just means I have the pleasure of reading the three books currently published (the third just published last week), all together.