 | The armchair detective Nero Wolfe meets Avatar in The Tainted Cup, a murder mystery set in a fantastical world of biological engineering and augmented humans. Our hero is Dinios “Din” Kol, an Engraver who has been augmented to permanently remember everything he experiences. During the story he meets an older Engraver who’s vast memories give him seizures—the eventual fate of all Engravers, it turns out. Din is a stickler for the rules who harbors a secret: because he can’t read, he failed his first tests before passing his final exam to become an Engraver. He keeps his impairment hidden, fearing retribution. |
Din plays Doctor Watson to the story’s Sherlock Holmes/Nero Wolfe, Anagosa “Ana” Dolabra, a brilliant and eccentric investigator who can read regular text with her fingertips, loves to interrogate random people, eats raw meat, and swears like a proverbial sailor. She spends most of her time blindfolded.
Why the blindfold? “Best to keep the sense limited, she’d explained once. And stay indoors. Too much stimulation drives a person mad.”
She delights in teasing stiff Din unmercifully but she’s much more than a caricature: she clearly has Din’s best interests in mind. She tells him: “The Empire is strong because it recognizes the value in all our people. Including you, Dinios Kol. And when the Empire is weak, it is often because a powerful few have denied us the abundance of our people.”
Why the blindfold? “Best to keep the sense limited, she’d explained once. And stay indoors. Too much stimulation drives a person mad.”
She delights in teasing stiff Din unmercifully but she’s much more than a caricature: she clearly has Din’s best interests in mind. She tells him: “The Empire is strong because it recognizes the value in all our people. Including you, Dinios Kol. And when the Empire is weak, it is often because a powerful few have denied us the abundance of our people.”
 | The book opens with Din examining the body of a high-level engineer who died when a plant the size of a bamboo tree sprouted from inside his body. In the course of the investigation we're introduced to the plant-based engineering driving this world’s Empire: hedges of lethal vines that kill intruders, doors and walls made of fernpaper (I pictured traditional Japanese shoji), glowing mai-trees used as lighting, kirpis mushrooms that act as air filters, and shootstraw used for pipes and scaffolding. |
As the story progresses, we learn the entire country is threatened by giant leviathans that come onshore during the wet season, which is imminent. Worse, part of the seawall keeping these monsters away is breached when a group of engineers sprout the same strange bamboo-plants as the original dead engineer. Ana and Din travel to the coast to try to unravel this new mystery.
Several new and fascinating characters are introduced (including the older Engraver with seizures). Din and Ana are part of the judiciary branch of the Empire. We meet members of the Apothecary caste who do genetic tinkering and the Legionaries who serve as the Empire’s army and police force (one of whom favors Din with a longing gazes).
Several new and fascinating characters are introduced (including the older Engraver with seizures). Din and Ana are part of the judiciary branch of the Empire. We meet members of the Apothecary caste who do genetic tinkering and the Legionaries who serve as the Empire’s army and police force (one of whom favors Din with a longing gazes).
 | As the story progresses, witnesses die just before they can be questioned, including the main suspect. Another victim, this one head of a powerful noble family, is killed by the sprouting bamboo. Din deciphers how he was murdered, and Ana unravels the entire mystery and cleverly traps the murderer soon after. |
The Tainted Cup is full of plot twists and surprising revelations, endearing characters, and a well-described world that’s utterly fantastical. A fun and enthralling read for fans of mysteries in a fantasy setting.
For more by Robert Jackson Bennett, read my reviews of the Divine Cities Trilogy:
City of Stairs, City of Blades, and City of Miracles
City of Stairs, City of Blades, and City of Miracles
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