It's Elementary Magic

One hazard of reading fantasy fiction is that most of the books held in highest regard are part of some epic, unfinished series from an author who putters around for years on the next book. I'm currently lost in the middle of more such stories than I can hold in memory, and not looking to start another. Except I just did. Fortunately, though, this one has turned out to be different.

The Tainted Cup comes from author Robert Jackson Bennett. It's the story of Dinios Kol, a young assistant assigned to brilliant investigator Ana Dolabra as she investigates a bizarre magical death. Din is an engraver, a person who has been magically altered to possess perfect memory. Ana dispatches him to go examine crime scenes without her, coming back to recount all the details. She remains blindfolded and shut away in her own thoughts as much as possible, bringing her intellect (also magically altered) to bear on solving cases. Together, the duo has stumbled onto a conspiracy that threatens the empire they serve.

The Tainted Cup is the first book of a trilogy dubbed "Shadow of the Leviathan," and bears all the trappings readers expect from high fantasy. The author has envisioned an elaborate world full of details that dance at the edges of the narrative: squabbling fiefdoms within a large empire; monstrous creatures that attack with regularity (and the efforts keep them at bay); and a unique system of magic with numerous facets, nooks, and crannies for the story to take advantage of.

And yet, the story of The Tainted Cup is not the typical "cast of dozens" set loose in that vivid world. It's the first-person narrative of Din, and is very much focused on the "Holmes and Watson"-like relationship they have in solving crimes. The book is almost as much a mystery novel as a fantasy novel, and I find the two genres play very well together. The instinct of a fantasy author to embellish a tale with elaborate details plants a perfect garden in which a mystery author can hide clues to a whodunnit. The presence of magic opens up whole new methods of how a crime can be carried out -- and so long as the rules of those magic are fixed and fair, the mystery can still be satisfying.

I'm not prepared to anoint The Tainted Cup as the beginning of my newest fantasy obsession. Still, Robert Jackson Bennett has crafted an enjoyable story featuring memorable characters and an overall setting worth going back to in future books. And on that front, there are two bonuses here:

First, The Tainted Cup is an almost-wholly self-contained book. By the end of it, the mystery has been solved. Tendrils of narrative certainly gesture at what will come next -- but plenty of conventional mystery novels conclude with less of a sense of closure than I found here in book one. This is a book that in my view doesn't require committing to the trilogy.

Second, following quickly on the heels of The Tainted Cup's publication last year, book two has already been released this year. And while you might well think, "sure... but how long until book three?", a quick search of Robert Jackson Bennett's bibliography shows he's been publishing with regularity since he first arrived on the scene in 2010 -- he's written a dozen books in 15 years, with never more than two years between them. Let's just say I'd put money on book three arriving before The Winds of Winter or The Doors of Stone.

I'd give The Tainted Cup a B+, and I plan to give book two a try at some point. If a high fantasy tweak on Holmes and Watson sounds like it might be for you, give it a try!