Available as: HB, audio, e
Source: Advance e-copy
ISBN(HB): 9781399725354
I'm grateful to Headline for giving me access to an advance e-copy of The Tainted Cup to consider for review.
In The Tainted Cup, Robert Jackson Bennett delivers not only a deviously plotted murder mystery in a fantasy setting, but in Ana and Kol, two of the most gloriously realised fantasy characters I'd met for a long time.
The book imagines a complex, sprawling Empire, dedicated to defending its territory against incursions by massive creatures from the deep ocean. Every year, the seawalls grow larger. Every year, more massive "bombards" are constructed, more soldiers thrown into the fight.
Nor are the Titans the only enemy. This is a world that wants to kills you, a world prone to plant-based "contagion", made worse by human tinkering and genetic experiments - like the one that has resulted in the death of an aristocrat, a death we see Kol making his way to investigate at the start of the story. This will bring him into conflict with a haughty family, a conflict around which much of the rest of the story revolves. This is a hierarchical world where massive accumulations of wealth exist and where patronage in the Legion and the regional administrations is a fact of life. Kol and his boss Ana have to contend with this, and it's only the tip of the politics that is behind events here.
Closer to home, another fact of Kol and Ana's lives is her condition. Ana is neurodiverse in a way not precisely specified, and which doesn't necessarily map onto categories we're familiar with, but one of the results is an extreme sensitivity to stimulation such that she needs to spent time isolated - for example shut in her travelling trunk - rather than risk being overwhelmed. When we meet her at the start of the book it's soon established that she hasn't left her home for some months. This condition seems related to her ability to process huge amounts of information - there were definite Sherlock Holmes vibes somewhere her, I felt. All of this makes Ana'a and Lols task of investigating crimes harder and easier: generally Ana will send Kol to gather facts which she them draws inferences form, but in such a hierarchical world that can put him in danger and the gem for them is rather up when news of a new crisis requires the two to travel to another city on the edge of the Empire.
How they tackle that - and the mutual support and understanding needed, which necessarily places a lot of weight on Kol's junior shoulders - is a vital and absorbing part of this book.
But it's all vital and absorbing. Strongly recommended.
For more information about The Tainted Cup, see the publisher's website here.
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