This book has a great premise with such a unique world! And while this book just wasn't one that vibed with my reading style, there are so many people who will love this story! I mean, killer plants, giant water monsters, and a cunning detective and her assistant in the middle of it all? If that's not intriguing, I don't know what is!

This is a fantasy murder mystery. It is a delightful read. it is fun and bright. It is set in fantastical world where people are fighting off titans that try and invade their lands every wet season. I loved the main characters and I want to learn more about them and their world. I hope the story continues.


I received a copy of the book from NetGalley

3.75 ✨ - *Thank you NetGalley for an early copy of this book!*

Investigators Ana and Din tag team a confounding case of spontaneous trees erupting from peoples bodies. This premise was SOO intriguing!! And the magic system was really unique I truly cannot think of a single book that has a similar magic system. Genetically enhanced memories and using smells to store those memories was the most intriguing part of the magic system for me!!

The overall plot started out feeling really slow, it was definately a meticulous unravelling of the plot and the crimes being investigated. However Ana Dolabra is a spitfire Iudex Investigator who has a mind akin to Sherlock. She sees every possibility from the smallest bit of evidence and watching her construct the pieces of this puzzle was amazing. Her "engraver" Din was also so fun to read about, his character goes from more timid and reserved to slowly becoming more sure of himself in his abilites which was nice to see. He also has dyslexia which I hardly see represented in Fantasy so that was nice to see.

One thing I will say is this book suffers from the fantasy name issue, for the first 25% of the book I struggled really hard with the names of people and places, it becomes easier as the story goes on for sure though. I also would have loved to learn more about the Leviathans. They are this shadow that comes up in conversation and a lingering threat throughout the entire book but towards the end we finally get to "see" one and it lasts less than a paragraph. I wish the titans were more fleshed out and had a little more weight in the story on the page. I also think the way that the crime is solved is kind of like an "ah ha!" investigator monologue when I wish the reader was let in on some of those threads before hand, it felt very out of nowhere, even though it made sense after it was explained, again I would have loved to be more invested and been able to make theories and have that feeling of anticaption for what was coming next.

There was something about Ana and Din that just kept me reading the entire time- 2 truly entertaining and interesting people to read about, even in the few moments where the investigation felt like it was at a lull or the plot felt slower.

I also get the feeling that the second book is going to be INSANE plotwise- we got a small glimpse at the leviathans and I need to know more and I have a feeling based on the ending that we will get more of their presence.

What and amazing fantasy murder mystery book. I didn't even know this was a genre but it was amazing. If gave us so many Watson and Holmes vibes but with added monsters, political intrigue, unique sci fi power with altered humans that have super powers. So unique the story just built and built and weaved together until the picture comes together and you are left with the "duh, why didn't I see that" moment.
I loved Din. I loved the idea of an engraver that can memorize everything they see or hear and repeat it back. (photographic memory is a superpower that I always find so cool. He was so button upped and reserved and he just was so perfect in the data collecting roll. I loved that as the story went out you got to see him grow in his powers and way of interacting with people. He was a truly righteous person that you just want to route for.
Ana was a whole character and then a half of one more. She was a lot. I saw a Tik Tok that related her to House and I was like..YES...OMG YES. She is a grumpy, erratic, brink of rude but is completely brilliant. She is always 5 steps of everyone but you can't really see what she is seeing until she lays it all out in rather dramatic confrontations. Dramatic!
The murder mystery story was well done and fun to follow all with the back drop of the mysterious monster that is hard to comprehend.
I would highly recommend to those that like fast past fantasy with a murder mystery twist. Ones that have a very unique world, a magic system that is really more sci fi based, monsters and political plots. Ones where the characters that you will fall in love with even if they are perfect.
I didn't know this book was the start of a series when I started reading and i felt that the story was wrapped up nicely to read as a stand alone if you wanted but I can't wait for the next one to fall back into this world and to see what Din and Ana are going to get themselves into as they move through the Empire.

Do we need another new variation on the Holmes/Watson duo?
Of course we do! We love the trope.
Build a fantastical futuristic world for our crime solvers to play in, and I’m in!

Robert Jackson Bennett’s latest novel “The Poisoned Cup” delivers complex world-building, richly imagined horror scenes, and elements of pulp fiction and whodunnits. It's weird and wonderful, with maddening characters, all memorable, from the lowliest to the loftiest.

You may not find the brilliant Ana Dolabra all that endearing, but her much-maligned assistant Din (yes, we hear echoes of “dim”) is an engaging narrator who stays impeccably calm and polite no matter who’s dishing out the verbal abuse. And everyone seems to dish it to him.

Dinios Kol is a very young and constantly underestimated assistant to the clever, condescending Ana Dolabra. Ana is profane, constantly dropping F-bombs and snark. Din takes it all in stride, even when his boss tells him he has “the exact right appetite for bland, bloody-minded drudgery that makes an assistant investigator excel.”

Din is an “Engraver.” He observes and remembers every detail at a crime scene. He memorizes volumes of information. Ana is a genius, but an eccentric. She almost never leaves the house. She sends Din to the crime scenes, then wears a blindfold when he comes back to recite his hours-long reports. How is this efficient or practical? Never mind. It makes her memorable with her vivid red scarf over her eyes. Her yellow eyes. With bone-white hair and “vaguely feline” mannerisms, not to mention her total lack of a social filter, Ana is more like a “mad housecat” than the greatest investigator in the Empire. She stays indoors, often blindfolded, as “Too much stimulation drives a person mad.” Ana repeatedly asks Din to bring her “moodies,” mood-altering drugs, to alleviate the monotony that afflicts the brilliant. Will he come through with illegal drugs for her, or is he too scrupulous to comply? (I’m not telling.)

Din, with his spotty academic record and inexperience, a boyish-looking age 20, always surprises whoever is at the crime scene. Thwarting expectations is what he does best.

The opening scene is atmospheric, with the stone walls of a politician's estate emerging from a mist. A man is dead, killed in a most unusual way. "A very large clutch of trees had spontaneously grown from within the deceased, tearing him apart from the inside," or some contagion that resembles a forest, and other victims soon follow. The details are lurid, so let us look instead at the setting. (You're welcome!)

The Empire of Khanum is vast, complex, and mind-boggling. Lowly workers keep the empire running while corrupt politicans kill to keep their secrets. People are augmented with extraordinary traits, from hulking giant soldiers to the “Sublimes,” whose minds are altered to have superhuman skills. Lanterns filled with glow-worms illuminate buildings made of living plants.

It took a while for me to start liking Ana, who has “a gift for inciting outrage.” She sounds insufferably full of herself, but she makes up for it with her appreciation of the lowly workers.

“That’s the real Empire right there, Din,” she tells him as they pass a crew of muddy workers replacing cracked bricks. “The boys and girls who fix the roads.” People love the Legion with their swords, she says, but “it’s the maintenance folk who keep the Empire going. Someone, after all, must do the undignified labor to keep the grand works of our era from tumbling down.”

I especially love Ana for this: “The Engineers make the world. Everyone else just lives in it.”

What a world it is. The Empire “spends endless amounts of blood and treasure defending a whole continent from sea beasts the size of small mountains,” leviathans that wipe out whole cities. Throughout the novel, tremors and alarm bells interrupt the murder investigations. “It often made it hard to go about your everyday tasks,” Din narrates. “What was the point of fetching food or fixing up your house or caring for your family when a titan could break through the walls and kill you and a thousand others like you in a matter of hours? What was the point of doing anything, really?”

Ana finds plenty to do, or for Din to do, while she solves the murder mystery. Hundreds of pages and surprises unfold.

The important part, for me, is that Ana shrugs off the sense of futility that plagues poor Din. “It’s not all walls and death and plotting!” she tells him after unveiling the culprit. ”Nor is it dreary dispensations and bureaucracy! We do these ugly, dull things for a reason - to make space where folk can live, celebrate, and know joy and love.”

Now that’s my kind of Sherlock.

I’ve enjoyed other variations on Sherlock, but this one is the strangest I’ve encountered yet. In a 2015 Wall Street Journal article [“Slipstream Fiction Goes Mainstream”](http://www.wsj.com/articles/slipstream-fiction-goes-mainstream-1423072888), Anna Russell and Jennifer Maloney define slipstream fiction as “the new weird,” mixing science fiction, fantasy or horror and slipping it into mainstream or literary fiction.

“The Poisoned Cup” is a great read, no matter what genre you call it. So many rich and varied details bring Din and Ana to life. Their world is weird and intriguing, a great escape for a few hours from the cold of the Midwest in this brutal start to winter of 2024.

Thank you, Net Galley and Random House Publishing Group/Ballantine/Del Rey for an eARC of this book.

The Tainted Cup (Shadow of the Leviathan, #1) by Robert Jackson Bennett
Pub Date: 06 Feb 2024

Bennett did a bang up job with this one! What a delightfully complex and vivid world he's created for us in The Tainted Cup -- creatures of titanic proportions threaten society, plants act as security systems, and people can augment their bodies to suit their surroundings and occupations. The writing was never too complex, I never felt lost in this new world, only fascinated by it. The plot was utterly intriguing and kept me on the edge of my seat the whole time. The characters are all likable and relatable, their wins and losses becoming the readers'. And amid all of this, there's a sweet coming-of-age quality to our main character, as he grows into his role as assistant investigator. I can't recommend this one enough.

Blog Post scheduled for Feb 16th
Imgur link goes to Instagram post scheduled for Feb 1st
Will be featured in January Reads Pt 1

TL;DR: Such a slow build but I really think it was worth it. A Holmesian mystery with lots of fantasy and plant magic/science!

The Tainted Cup is not the book for people who get weirded out by plants and mushrooms. I’ll just open up with that one. The whole premise of the mystery here is that a government official is murdered by means of a giant plant erupting from his body and devouring it whole. And that isn’t the only time it happens.

Our primary PoV is Din, a newly assigned assistant to a quirky and exiled investigator named Ana. Din Encodes memories, recalling them with a smell assigned to each memory. This means he can recall with exact precision the way something looks, feels, tastes, smells, etc at a prompt. Ana uses Din to review crimes and she solves them (think Sherlock and Watson with a much more involved Watson). Ana herself is odd, insisting on living mostly blindfolded though she’s not blind, and with augments that allow her to read ink through her fingertips.

These two odd characters begin small, investigating the murder of a visiting government official and end up moving to a military border town. This border town keeps out the leviathans that come from the ocean, a fascinating and deeply unnerving backdrop to even more gruesome plant deaths.

This was a slow mystery, building in tension and parts till an INTENSE ending. I genuinely had the thought a few times ‘Perhaps I should DNF’ but I kept going and it was so worth that build. If you don’t mind a slower start, I can’t recommend this enough.

5 out of 5 giant air conditioning mushrooms

I absolutely loved this little murder mystery. The different fantasy elements that the author created that were a part of the society were so creative. The world building was phenomenal and did not create any confusion. This was a genre mash up that did not use "oh it was magic" as a cop out for solving the mystery. I particularly liked Ana's character spending time to explain her thoughts to Din.

I loved the plot, the humor, the fantasy EVERYTHING, Din is so amazing, Ana, who is not your average investigator. I am a true lover of some mystery, especially when they are both tasked to solve some murders, and not just any murder, lol, a tree that literally rips them from inside???? Such gore, and I was here for it. Thank you Netgalley and the publishers for giving me the opportunity to read this book.

The Tainted Cup was a blend of fantasy and murder mystery.. solving a murder in a world full of strange fungi and leviathan monsters roaming about.

I enjoyed the way the book sort of threw me into the world, revealing things in a way that laid the foundation bit by bit without being overly complex or wordy. It was confusing at first, but as things begin to matter, the author made sure to guide the reader along with descriptions and explanations as needed.

Ana was a very strange and quirky character, so Din’s task of being her assistant was never dull.

I loved the idea of this book and felt it was executed very well, but it was a tad bit long for me. It was filled with your typical whodunnit murder mystery explanations and reveals and theories that a lot of people love that I find a bit annoying personally. I think this is a me problem and it will feel very fun for anyone who enjoys a good whodunnit.

I recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a Leviathan horror mixed with a Sherlock Holmes or Agatha Christie style mystery.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

This was hands down one of the best, most quirky, most masterfully crafted books I've ever read. The breadcrumbs, the clues, the revelations....it all comes together so beautifully that my jaw was just on the floor. If you pay super close attention there are definitely some things you can guess, but I'm not upset to say that I'll never be as smart as Ana Doabara. That said, all her explanations make sense - I never felt like Bennett was just making things up to fill plot holes or force the story in a direction - everything was perfectly placed to get to the climax of the case.

My favorite thing about this world is the science-based magic system - giant Leviathans with magical blood that serves as the base for contagions, grafts, alterations....humans drastically altered to fit into an Empire focused primarily on survival. The magic is heavily influenced by biology and chemistry and it's nothing short of marvelous how Bennett weaves reality with fantasy.

On top of an awesome plot and unique magic system, the characters and worldbuilding are simply unmatched. The description of "Sherlock Holmes and Watson meets Knives Out in a fantasy-setting mystery" is 100% accurate - everything and everyone are so unique and quirky and while it's utterly ridiculous, it's never outrageous outside the confines of the world.

Honestly, whether you are a sci-fi, fantasy, mystery, or humor-loving reader you'll find something to love in this book. It's just such a fun and wonderful ride and I cannot WAIT for Bennett to write more in this world!

Talk about a genre bending book!

At its heart this book is unquestionably a Sherlockian style mystery. The lead investigator, Ana Dolabra, is eccentric, consumed by the need for information, and utterly brilliant. I feel that so many strong, smart female protagonists are also written as unlikeable and/or fundamentally broken in a way that makes them “less”, but Ana’s quirks and flaws are simply part of who she is and work together to make her “more’. Her newly chosen assistant, Kol, is enigmatic, honorable, and comes from humble beginnings. The chemistry between the two of them is terrific.

Yet, this book is also unquestionably sci-fi with its intriguing world whose entire existence revolves around protecting itself from giant sea creatures called Leviathans, and a technology that seems to be plant based.

The sci-fi elements of the book make the mystery elements more complex, and harder to puzzle through. What would constitute clues in our reality, are completely different in this world. The plot was compelling, but information dense, so this was a blend of wanting to read through quickly, but needing to take it slow so as not to miss anything important about the world the author is building, or the mystery that is unfolding.

I love this juxtaposition of a classic whodunit with an engaging partnership of investigator and sidekick, but set in an unambiguously sci-fi universe. Neither the classic mystery elements, nor the science fiction world building were given short shaft – the author did a tremendous job of writing both fully and completely.

I enjoyed this book much more than I thought I would, and I was glad to see that there will be another book in this series.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC. This gives major Sherlock and Watts vibes, but put them in high fantasy. The huge amount of world building did get me sometimes and I got confused on more than one occasion, however I was still able to follow along and grasp the bigger picture of the events happening. Definitely not a starter fantasy, but still enjoyable. I do hope the Leviathans get explained more in the future.

Every world that RJB creates is fascinating. This has monstrous leviathans, contagions, and people that alter themselves to excel at certain things. Din is an engraver, which means he can remember anything he sees. He is the assistant to Ana, an eccentric, but brilliant investigator. They are pulled into an investigation that just keeps getting larger and more important to the Empire. As they get deeper, the plot gets thicker and bigger in terms of who is involved. But Ana plays a long game, and dang, is she good at it. Thoroughly enjoyed the magic/science, the plot, and the characters.

4.5 Stars for this completely unpredictable murder mystery set in a rich fantasy setting.

The fantasy aspect of the Tainted Cup first drew me to the book, and while Robert Jackson Bennett knocked it out the park with the world building and unique setting, the mystery and unique array of characters kept me picking up the book. The magic system and how it is used in this society is very different from anything I have read. I’m very excited to see how this world expands and will definitely be picking up the next book!

A perplexing case, a man found with plants sprouting from his being. A journey unfolds as young detective in training follows the clues to contagion taking this man's life. This sci/fi fantasy adventure was mysterious with its cast of magical characters.

This book dragged at some parts, and it had A LOT going on. I struggled through the beginning, and found the second half way better read.

Rating 3.5 | Thank you, Random House Publishing.

Rating: 4.5

I loved the characters, the world building and the writing. Though I was confused sometimes. I overall loved this book and I'm looking forward to reading the sequel and anything else this author has written.

I was immediately excited to read The Tainted Cup as soon as it was announced. Bennett’s Divine Cities trilogy is my favorite completed trilogy of all time, and The Troupe is one of my favorite standalones. I still need to read more of his backlist, including the last two books in the Founders series and American Elsewhere, but I have really enjoyed everything I’ve read from him. Mix my trust in him as an author with the idea of Sherlock and Watson in a dark fantasy world and I am sold!

Our story opens with Dinios Kol, our perspective character and riff on John Watson, inspecting the scene of a suspicious, and incredibly disturbing, death. He is an engraver, someone augmented and supplemented to remember every syllable of conversation, every inch of a crime scene. Which is incredibly handy for Anagosa Dolabra, the semi-homebound Inspector to whom he is apprenticed. Ana is just as much Sherlock as Din is Watson. Early on in the story, the similarities were so strong that they felt almost like caricatures. Especially Ana. She was almost laughably a genderbent Holmes, complete with Sherlock’s same brand of barely contained mania. She even plays a stringed instrument on occasion and deeply desired psychedelics as a method for warding off boredom. However, as the story progressed both characters became more nuanced, more interesting in and of themselves.

The murder Din engraves and shares with Ana is but the tip of the iceberg of a larger conspiracy, one that brings them to the fraught, dangerous edges of the Empire. Here they are in close proximity to the sea wall, the only thing keeping invading titans from making landfall and wreaking havoc. When the wall is breached, Din and Ana must solve their multilayered, twisted mystery before there’s no city left to protect. Unfortunately, Din and Ana are Iudex, which is essentially Internal Affairs for the Empire’s military. This means that they aren’t popular, to say the least, and that everyone seems intent on hiding things from them, even when doing so places the entire Empire in greater danger.

I found this entire world fascinating. From the beginning, we are introduced to fascinating, magical, somewhat macabre flora that the people of this world utilize in all kinds of interesting ways. The ‘science’ of engraving is incredibly interesting, as are the other Sublime arts. Sublimes accept radical augmentations to their bodies. These augmentations give them some insane abilities, but always at a cost. There are cracklers, soldiers and workers who are incredibly strong, to the point that even their skeletons have to be augmented to bear the weight, resulting in a crackling sound to their movements. Engravers tend to go slightly mad from all of the information their brains are required to hold. There are those who have incredibly acute senses of smell, or touch. And all of these augmentations come from the blood of the very titans that so threaten the land.

As mentioned above, both Din and Ana grew as characters throughout the story. I came to especially like Din, who surprised me multiple times both with his engraving and his ability to put things together in ways most engravers could not. He had a strong sense of morality, but also knew when it was necessary to bend or break some rules. And right around the halfway mark of the book, there is a fight scene featuring Din that I thought was exceptional. Ana had to juggle so much information. She always had a reason for keeping things close to the chest that I actually found believable. I wouldn’t say that I came to like her, but it was a near thing. She was never boring. There was one other side character that I very much enjoyed: Miljin. He was very much his own person, but reminded me of characters like Logen Ninefingers.

All in all, this was a pretty compelling story. The world was always fascinating, and the mystery element was well balanced and well paced. The characters were compelling and grew as their story progressed. I like that Bennett tied the story up neatly while still leaving himself plenty of room to create further installments. It took me a little while to get into this book, but I came to enjoy it. I’ll definitely be reading whatever Bennett publishes next in the series.

The Tainted Cup is a fantasy murder mystery blend. We start with the murder of an Imperial officer, who died when a giant tree spontaneously erupts from within him. Ana Dolabra, an investigator with sensory sensitivities, sends our main character, Din, to investigate the scene and report back to her all he sees and hears. As a magically enhanced 'engraver,' Din remembers everything he sees and hears. Despite the abundance of terrors, with contagions and the ever present fear or titans coming to land and destroying their homes, this investigation leads into a much larger issue threatening their land.

Robert Jackson Bennett states in the author note that he wanted to write a fun mystery in a fantasy setting, and he DELIVERED! The dynamic between Ana and Din is described as a Watson-and-Holmes take, which I can't speak to as I've never read the original. However, I can say that I absolutely enjoyed the hell out of their dynamic. Both characters are funny in their own rights. I was not expecting to laugh nearly as much as these characters made me. If you're into dark, sometimes downright morbid humor, you'll find this hilarious. Ana goads Din, and a few times, he pushes right back at her. Their clap backs to one another are perfect.

The worldbuilding was my second favorite part. It was so cool and expansive, even in the little details (which by the way, all the little details within the mystery aspect of the story - the way they all came together - EXCELLENT). I cannot wait to see more of the world in the sequels, as I can already tell we will get so much more crazy unique worldbuilding from this series.

I am so excited at the knowledge that I have Bennett's backlist to read because I need more of his writing!

What a ride! I haven’t had so much fun reading a book in such a long time. Gripping story, fun characters, and Bennett’s signature engrossing drip-fed worldbuilding, The Tainted Cup kept me up til 3AM, absolutely enthralled.

My first exposure to The Tainted Cup was the pitch Game of Thrones meets Knives Out, and I was sold on the Knives Out comp alone. Having read the book, I can confidently say that those comps doesn’t nearly do this story justice. The more accurate comp ought to be ‘biopunk Attack on Titan meets Knives Out/Sherlock Holmes’. Seriously, the worldbuilding so freaking cool! The story opens with our Watson character, Din, heading to the scene of the crime, where a full-grown tree has spontaneously sprouted out of some poor guy’s chest. Along the way, Din describes how plants for security, air conditioning, and of course murder. Apparently scientists of this world have genetically modified the shit out of all organic organisms, including humans (Din included). The biopunk aspect plays a strong role throughout the story, and is one of the most creative and unique worlds I’ve read in some time. It also lends itself to a nice subtle body horror angle, giving this world a slightly creepy edge.

Soon after the opening, we learn that Din’s country is surrounded by heavy walls. Why? To keep out the Leviathans, giant sea dwelling monsters that seasonally approach the country’s borders and can cause absolute devastation if not repelled. Attack on Titan, anyone???? The constant threat of Leviathan attacks and how they shape entire industries in Din’s world is central to the worldbuilding and Benett’s does a wonderful job drip-feeding the reader information, keeping up on our toes and constantly craving more. Bennett has some of the best worldbuilding in the fantasy genre and it really shows.

Of course, the story itself is no slouch either. The prose is relatively quick paced, with this mysterious tree-murder at the forefront of our character’s mind. Din, and his Holmes-esque mentor, Ana, are great characters to follow. Their banter is often hilarious and witty, and their occasional softer moments a great balancing act that shows how strong the relationship between runs. Each keeps hidden skeletons and the recognition of each other’s expertise makes for such a strong dynamic. I love component characters and these two certainly embody that. Bennett does a great job interweaving the mystery these two are attempting to solve with greater plot elements at play.

Overall, I rate this book a 5/5. Some of the most unique worldbuilding I’ve read recently, in this ‘biopunk Attack on Titan x Knives Out’ world, great characters, and an immersive murder mystery plot.