The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett

The Tainted Cup

4/5. Holmesian fantasy about the assistant investigator dragged along in the wake of his brilliant/eccentric/difficult boss to solve a set of murders that started with a tree bursting out of a man’s chest; also, the leviathans may be about to break the sea wall and kill everybody.

Great, even (especially?) if you ignore the pastiche as hard as I did. I am just so over it. But here you can ignore – there are allusions and archetypes, but there’s plenty of other there there. And what’s left is a really interesting world, vividly drawn characters that I’m hoping the series will expand upon because I have the sense there’s a lot more to say, and some musings on the nature of government and society. Is it another Divine Cities book? No, and I’m still waiting for him to produce something else in that league. But this is still a pleasure, and I will read more.

Content notes: Some body horror, passing references to sexual assault, murder