Review: The Tainted Cup & A Drop of Corruption

5/5 stars

The Tainted Cup and A Drop of Corruption, by Robert Jackson Bennett (2024 & 2025)

These books really deliver when it comes to a well-developed fantasy world, intriguing murder mysteries, and quirky, compelling characters! If you are a fan of Sherlock Holmes stories, but also would like that to be happening in a place where people have magical powers grafted to their bodies using the blood of sea leviathans who lumber ashore and try to destroy the kingdom... you're in luck!

The story revolves around two main characters - Ana Dolabra, who is the Sherlock of the duo, and Dinios (Din) Kol, the Watson. Ana is an imperial investigator who travels to the far reaches of the empire to investigate the most mysterious and confounding murder cases. She is extremely eccentric, but brilliant. She barely leaves her quarters, and wears a blindfold most of the time (though she can see, she just chooses not to, because it's too much information all at once). Din serves as her eyes and ears - he goes on location to review the murder scenes and conduct interviews, and reports back to her in great detail. He is able to do this because of the special magical abilities that were grafted on to him - he is an "engraver," which means he has perfect recall. He engraves a scene and all that is said and done upon his memory, and can report back every minute detail. Ana and Din's adventures are narrated by Din, much as Sherlock's are told by Watson. Din is the faithful, slightly bumbling sidekick, able to observe all but deduce much less. He helps smooth over relationships that Ana's brashness leaves in disarray.

In The Tainted Cup, an imperial officer is found dead in his room, but in a most curious manner. A tree has spontaneously exploded from inside his body. Determined to be a murder, Ana and Din must follow all the leads, no matter how far up the political ladder they go. It's a really well laid out mystery with lots of layers I couldn't have predicted.

A Drop of Corruption continues to follow Ana and Din on another unsolvable murder - a man disappears from a locked, guarded room with no way out, only for parts of his body to surface in a river many miles away. We learn more about how the leviathan blood is used to add enhancements to the kingdom's people - not just like Din's engraver status, but extreme strength or speed, healing powers, etc. Again, our protagonists must follow the money, the murders, and the stolen goods to unravel the complex motives behind the murder.

What I most love about the series so far is the world-building. It's complicated and detailed, but doesn't feel overwhelming, or like anything is there just to show off. Everything has a purpose and ties in (or feels like it will eventually) to the plot.

One more book, A Trade of Blood, is scheduled for release in summer 2026, and my hope is that we learn more about the actual leviathans themselves. Where do they come from, what are they made of, why do they attack the shore? I also want to know more about the "inner ring" where the imperial court lies. Who lives there, and what kind of control do they wield over the entire empire? I'm looking forward to the final book of the trilogy!

Oh, and there are maps! 🤩

---

UP NEXT: I Who Have Never Known Men, by Jacqueline Harpman