The Tainted Cup (preorder)

(preorder—to be published in Spring)

Dust Jacket and Interior Illustrations by Tom Roberts

We're delighted to present a signed limited edition of The Tainted Cup, Robert Jackson Bennett's Hugo-Award winning novel, featuring multiple gatefold illustrations and a brand new novella, The Fallen Master.

About the Book:

Dinios Kol, assistant to Investigator Ana Dolabra, visits a very fine mansion, belonging to an extremely wealthy and powerful family. He was sent there because a death had occurred. And not just any death, but one that sounds impossible: a tree has spontaneously grown from the dead man.

Din is an engraver, someone biologically altered to remember perfectly everything that he experiences and recall this data at any time. Ana, the investigator he serves, is one of the more unusual fictional detectives you might have the good fortune to encounter. Among her other idiosyncrasies, she often wears a red blindfold, so as not to be overwhelmed by her senses. For similar reasons, she only rarely leaves her house, relying on Din’s altered abilities to provide her with necessary evidence. She has recently been appointed to the Outer Rim of the Empire, and she is catastrophically bored.

But a death is an excellent cure for boredom. Ana quickly determines that the engineer’s death was not a strange and horrible accident, but rather a very deliberate murder. And then a leviathan, having made its way up from the depths, breaches the Empire’s walls. In the wake of this, it becomes clear that the murderer has struck again, not only killing multiple people this time, but also weakening those protective walls at the beginning of the wet season, the time when even more leviathans will venture forth to try them.

As if murders and monsters aren’t enough, Din has secrets of his own, ones he is desperate to keep from Ana. But as he watches her astounding skills, their discovery seems more and more likely.

Ana and Din share literary kinship with Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin. But just as there is no place quite like the Empire, there is no literary duo quite like Ana and Din.

About the Bonus Novella, The Fallen Master:

In the imperial town of Temir, one of the greatest metalmasters is found dead at his forge. Suspicion instantly falls on his apprentice Olsev, whose powerful cerebral augmentations—and neurodivergence—make her an astonishing genius at craftsmanship, yet difficult to understand. 

Olsev’s pleas of innocence go unheeded by the authorities—until the Imperial Iudex takes an interest in her case and sends two very unusual detectives to investigate: Ana Dolabra and Dinios Kol. Caught between the machinations of the Empire, her colleagues, and the powerful interests of the gentry class, Olsev must decide if she can trust these detectives—and if her master’s death might hide a truth too terrible for her to bear.

Limited Edition Features:

• Oversized, 7 x 10 trim size
• Printed offset in two colors (black and Pantone®) on 70# archival quality paper in Opaque Bright White
• Full-color wraparound dust jacket art by Tom Roberts
• The dust jacket will feature a spot gloss on the parts of the front and back
• Four full-color gatefold illustrations
• Smyth-sewn binding
• Includes “The Fallen Master,” a more than 30,000 word original novella set in the world of the novel;
• 512 pages
• The book will be housed in a custom, foil-stamped slipcase

Limited: 500 signed numbered hardcover copies

Note: The slipcase mockup is not yet final.

From Publishers Weekly (Starred Review):

“Bennett (the Founders trilogy) brilliantly melds genres in this exceptional mystery-fantasy, the first in his Shadow of the Leviathan series... The worldbuilding is immediately involving, Bennett’s take on a classic detective duo dynamic feels fresh and exciting, and the mystery itself twists and turns delightfully. Readers will be wowed.”

From Booklist (Starred Review):

“Inspired by Nero Wolfe with a bit of Hannibal Lector added to his prime investigator, Bennett (Foundryside, 2018) kicks off the Shadow of the Leviathan series, which will delight fans of fantasy-infused mysteries.”

From Library Journal (Starred Review):

“Bennett’s (Locklands) series opener introduces readers to a conspiracy of murder and skullduggery as seen through the eyes of a naive junior investigator who is forced to grow up fast and hard as his boss and mentor, the rather Sherlockian Ana, threads her way through a complex conspiracy of murders.”

From Kirkus:

“Call Bennett’s latest a drawing-room mystery, albeit the drawing room is the size of a small otherworldly kingdom… With plenty of red herrings—beg pardon, red leviathans—and neatly imagined plot twists to work through, the reader fond of faux medieval neologisms and occasional grownup moments (‘a glimpse of her body, and a winking tuft of pubic thatch’) will enjoy solving the mystery with our heroes.”