A fantastical murder-mystery set in a world steeped in flora and fauna, where beasts rampage and a Holmes-and-Watson-esque duo leads a murder investigation—I enjoyed The Tainted Cup so much in 2024 that I re-read it over my birthday in 2025. Finally, I’ve put finger to pad to try and get across why you should read it too.
Overview
Genre(s): Fantasy, murder mystery, body gore
Series order: First book in The Shadow of the Leviathan series
Pages: 410
Content warnings: Strong language (f***), gore, violent deaths, murder
Age rating: 14 / 15
Rosenburger Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
The Tainted Cup Synopsis
The great and powerful Leviathans used to rise from the sea and freely traverse the Empire of Khanum —beasts with an untold number of legs, faces in their underbellies, and grey armoured skin that made them almost impossible to fell. Almost. The First Legion of Khanum succeeded in driving the Leviathans back to the sea, where towering walls were built to keep them out each wet season.
Within those walls, apothecaries discovered that Leviathan blood held the power to augment a person’s mind or body. It could make you stronger, faster, grant night vision, or allow you to remember everything you see. It is with this latter augmentation that Dinios Kol is altered, using his perfect memory to assist his commanding investigator, Anagosa ‘Ana’ Dolabra, to solve imperial crimes.
While the guards stationed on the sea walls keep watch for the next Leviathan assault, Dolabra and Kol are drawn into a different kind of threat. A tree has sprouted from the body of a Legion Commander, blooming from his collarbone, ripping through his chest as it both takes root and stretches towards the sky. There appears to be no reason this man was targeted. But he was found dead in the home of one of the most powerful families in the Empire. It is by no means an accident.
Dolabra and Kol must pick their way through the weeds of this case, carefully navigating a host of suspects, shifting loyalties, and hidden agendas, and stay alive long enough to uncover who, or what, killed the Commander. And most importantly, why.
Characters in The Tainted Cup
Thankfully, RJB hasn’t leaned too far into the classic fantasy trait of “too many characters with too difficult names.” For the most part, the only characters you truly need to care about are Head Investigator Ana Dolabra and her apprentice, Dinios Kol.
Anagosa ‘Ana’ Dolabra
We love to see a woman in charge, and Ana is absolutely that. As quick as a whippet and as sly as an alley cat, she’s always three steps ahead of everyone else, and can’t quite fathom why others can’t see what’s so clearly obvious to her. This trait, alongside her interest in stringed instruments and her near-constant state of boredom, nods to Sherlock Holmes, without overdoing the resemblance.
Easily overstimulated, Ana often wears a blindfold, indicating that to see clearly, you sometimes don’t need to see at all. While Din is augmented with total recall, Ana’s augmentation allows her to read by touch, simply skimming her fingers over letters on a page, as well as, um, other things we don’t yet know about.
Her refusal to suffer fools, the way she treats those she respects with sharp brilliance, and her all-out wicked cleverness made her one of my favourite (if not the favourite) characters of 2024.
Dinios ‘Din’ Kol
Sweet, sweet Din. God bless the ground this man walks upon.
At the start of The Tainted Cup, he’s unsure of his own brilliance and convinced he’ll underperform on any task Ana sets him. But we get to watch him grow, not into someone entirely confident, but certainly more sure of his skills and instincts.
It’s always Din who grounds Ana and keeps her in check when she gets too big for her boots. He’s never disrespectful, but his dry wit and near-constant adherence to the law offer a quiet counterbalance to Ana’s more chaotic leanings. She’ll happily bend the rules when necessary, he’ll remind her not to snap them.
This dynamic, the rookie trying to follow the rules and the veteran doing whatever it takes to keep the Empire safe, gives the novel a strong, evolving relationship that I found endearing to no end.
Top Three Tropes
Flora and fauna
A tree sprouts from a man’s body, so it’s clear that plant life plays a huge part in this novel. As a plant-girlie, this immediately appeals to me. Taking something green, luscious, and often symbolic of new life, and using it to kill in a horrific, gory way, is a brilliant juxtaposition. If you’re willing to read into it (as I am), it suggests that the most unsuspecting things can cause harm, and that appearances and common associations don’t always reflect the true nature of something or someone.
The corpse hung suspended in the center of the bedchamber, speared by the many slender trees […] A bit of torso was visible in the thicket, and some of the left leg […] The right arm was totally lost, and the right leg had been devoured by the swarm of roots pouring out from the trunks of the little trees and eating into the stonewood floor of the chamber.
The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett, Page 18
Clans vs Government
Actual power vs the appearance of power. The government provides formalised law and institutions that everything is meant to adhere to. Clans (families loyal only to themselves and their own interests) are much harder to control. Ana is Iudex; she believes in law, order, and justice for the unjust. But the legion commander is found in the Halls of the Hazas, a clan that may not share her definition of justice. This imbalance eats away at our main character and is a central trope to the book as a whole.
Nature as a mirror
It’s no coincidence that the sea churns and a leviathan approaches the walls just as a murder takes place. This pattern recurs throughout the novel. As the city grows more frantic under the looming leviathan threat, Ana and Din uncover deeper layers of mystery. When their investigation reaches its climax, and the Empire’s legal and social systems begin to fracture, the Empire itself faces a literal, physical breaking point from the sea.
My Final Thoughts
I grew up with CSI, NCI, etc, Fantasy is my favourite genre, and, as previously stated, I am a plant-girlie, so The Tainted Cup truly ticks every box for me. This book is so polished, so well-thought-out and clearly written with care and attention to detail. I found there to be nothing superfluous, no characters that I couldn’t envision in my mind’s eye, no plot that was so convoluted that I couldn’t follow it. This is a book that I would recommend to someone just getting into fantasy (get those expectations high QUICK) or someone who wants a good fantasy novel. If you’re on the fence, I implore you to read!
