The Tainted Cup
A Holmes and Watson–style detective duo take the stage in this fantasy with a mystery twist, from the Edgar-winning, multiple Hugo-nominated Robert Jackson Bennett
“Superbly blends mystery and fantasy . . . Give me more of this world and these characters ASAP!”—#1 New York Times bestselling author Meg Gardiner
In Daretana’s greatest mansion, a high imperial officer lies dead—killed, to all appearances, when a tree erupted from his body. Even here at the Empire’s borders, where contagions abound and the blood of the leviathans works strange magical changes, it’s a death both terrifying and impossible.
Assigned to investigate is Ana Dolabra, a detective whose reputation for brilliance is matched only by her eccentricities. Rumor has it that she wears a blindfold at all times, and that she can solve impossible cases without even stepping outside the walls of her home.
At her side is her new assistant, Dinios Kol, magically altered in ways that make him the perfect aide to Ana’s brilliance. Din is at turns scandalized, perplexed, and utterly infuriated by his new superior—but as the case unfolds and he watches Ana’s mind leap from one startling deduction to the next, he must admit that she is, indeed, the Empire’s greatest detective.
As the two close in on a mastermind and uncover a scheme that threatens the Empire itself, Din realizes he’s barely begun to assemble the puzzle that is Ana Dolabra—and wonders how long he’ll be able to keep his own secrets safe from her piercing intellect.
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Robert Jackson Bennett
In the shifting terrain of modern fantasy, Robert Jackson Bennett stands out not for the worlds he builds, but for the questions he refuses to let go unanswered. His stories don’t just transport readers—they confront them. What if gods could die, and their corpses still held sway over history? What if magic were reduced to a language—a programming code etched into reality—and power came from those who knew how to rewrite the rules?
Born in 1984 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and raised in the outskirts of Houston, Bennett grew up roaming the in-between spaces—construction sites, empty fields, drainage ditches. Places where things were half-finished or half-forgotten. That sense of the liminal—the not-quite-here, not-quite-normal—echoes in everything he writes. He later studied English at the University of Texas at Austin, but it wasn’t academia that shaped his narrative instincts—it was curiosity, the kind that turns over every rock just to see what’s writhing beneath.
Shadow of the Leviathan
In a land where monsters rise with the tide and truth is more dangerous than myth, Shadow of the Leviathan carves out a space unlike any other in the fantasy genre—a place where the grotesque is beautiful, the arcane is biological, and the greatest weapon is observation.
Set in the Empire of Khanum, a society both fortified and fractured by the seasonal emergence of towering leviathans, the series follows Ana Dolabra, a brilliant, blindfolded investigator with an eccentric mind, and her meticulous assistant Dinios Kol, who forgets nothing. Together, they navigate a world reshaped by the alchemical power of leviathan blood—where plants invade flesh, and politics are no less tangled than the roots of a living, weaponized forest.
Shadow of the Leviathan consists of two books and series is set to expand with the upcoming release of two more books. The current recommended reading order for the series is provided below.
