
The Tainted Cup
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Andrew Fallaize
About this listen
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
“Great fantasy detective stories are too rare, but Bennett—[a] rising star of fantasy—more than delivers.”—Charlie Jane Anders, The Washington Post
“A thoroughly satisfying delight from start to finish.”—Amal El-Mohtar, The New York Times Book Review
NOMINATED FOR THE EDGAR AWARD • A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, NPR, Elle, BookPage
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.
By an “endlessly inventive” (Vulture) author with a “wicked sense of humor” (NPR), The Tainted Cup mixes the charms of detective fiction with brilliant world-building to deliver a fiendishly clever mystery that’s at once instantly recognizable and thrillingly new.
©2024 Robert Jackson Bennett (P)2024 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“I loved this. A twisty detective story, a weird fantasy, a thrilling adventure—The Tainted Cup is a masterstroke. I want Bennett to write a dozen of these, and send them to me yesterday.”—Max Gladstone, New York Times bestselling co-author of This Is How You Lose the Time War
“The Tainted Cup is a true fantasy mystery, with a leading duo who stand with Holmes and Watson among the greats. And Bennett sets it all in a squishy, fascinating, biopunk world I’m dying to find out more about. Bring on the next one!”—Django Wexler, author of the Shadow Campaigns series
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Performance
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In just over a year’s time, Ryia Cautella has already earned herself a reputation as the quickest, deadliest blade in the dockside city of Carrowwick - not to mention the sharpest tongue. But Ryia Cautella is not her real name. For the past six years, a deadly secret has kept her in hiding, running from town to town, doing whatever it takes to stay one step ahead of the formidable Guildmaster - the sovereign ruler of the five kingdoms of Thamorr. No matter how far or fast she travels, his servants never fail to track her down...but even the most powerful men can be defeated.
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Back alleys & backstabbing = bollicking good times
- By 🔥 Phx17 🔥 on 07-17-22
By: M. J. Kuhn
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Rough Trade
- A Novel
- By: Katrina Carrasco
- Narrated by: Stacy Gonzalez
- Length: 14 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Washington Territory, 1888. With contacts on the docks and in the railroad, and with a buyers' market funneling product their way, Alma Rosales and her opium-smuggling crew are making a fortune. They spend their days moving product and their nights at the Monte Carlo, the center of Tacoma's queer scene, where skirts and trousers don't signify and everyone's free to suit themselves.
By: Katrina Carrasco
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Her Majesty's Royal Coven
- A Novel
- By: Juno Dawson
- Narrated by: Aoife McMahon
- Length: 13 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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At the dawn of their adolescence, on the eve of the summer solstice, four young girls—Helena, Leonie, Niamh and Elle—took the oath to join Her Majesty's Royal Coven, established by Queen Elizabeth I as a covert government department. Now, decades later, the witch community is still reeling from a civil war and Helena is the reigning High Priestess of the organization. Yet Helena is the only one of her friend group still enmeshed in the stale bureaucracy of HMRC.
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This is the Queer Fantasy you've been looking for
- By Anonymous User on 04-12-23
By: Juno Dawson
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Savage Legion
- Savage Rebellion
- By: Matt Wallace
- Narrated by: Lameece Issaq
- Length: 15 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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They call them Savages. Brutal. Efficient. Expendable. The empire relies on them. The Savages are the greatest weapon they ever developed. Culled from the streets of their cities, they take the ones no one will miss and throw them, by the thousands, at the empire’s enemies. Evie is not a Savage. She’s a warrior with a mission: to find the man she once loved, the man who holds the key to exposing the secret of the Savage Legion and ending the mass conscription of the empire’s poor and wretched. But to find him, she must become one of them....
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It could have been good, but wasn't
- By M. Wightman on 09-20-21
By: Matt Wallace
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American Elsewhere
- By: Robert Jackson Bennett
- Narrated by: Graham Winton
- Length: 22 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Some places are too good to be true. Under a pink moon, there is a perfect little town not found on any map. In that town, there are quiet streets lined with pretty houses, houses that conceal the strangest things. After a couple years of hard traveling, ex-cop Mona Bright inherits her long-dead mother's home in Wink, New Mexico. And the closer Mona gets to her mother's past, the more she understands that the people of Wink are very, very different....
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You are entering the twighlight zone
- By Lisa on 07-29-13
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The Troupe
- By: Robert Jackson Bennett
- Narrated by: Luis Moreno
- Length: 18 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Best-selling author Robert Jackson Bennett has won widespread critical acclaim for his unique brand of darkly inventive fiction. In The Troupe, 16-year-old George Carole joins vaudeville in search of Heironomo Silenus, the man he believes to be his father. But what he discovers casts a dark pall over his world: Silenus' troupe hides a dangerous secret - one that invites death to all in its vicinity.
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Not worth the effort!
- By Howard on 08-12-13
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A Deadly Education
- A Novel (The Scholomance, Book 1)
- By: Naomi Novik
- Narrated by: Anisha Dadia
- Length: 10 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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I decided that Orion Lake needed to die after the second time he saved my life. Everyone loves Orion Lake. Everyone else, that is. Far as I’m concerned, he can keep his flashy combat magic to himself. I’m not joining his pack of adoring fans. I don’t need help surviving the Scholomance, even if they do. Forget the hordes of monsters and cursed artifacts; I’m probably the most dangerous thing in the place. Just give me a chance and I’ll level mountains and kill untold millions, making myself the dark queen of the world.
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Intersting concept, way too much self pity
- By Rune on 10-13-20
By: Naomi Novik
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The Shadow of What Was Lost
- Licanius, Book 1
- By: James Islington
- Narrated by: Michael Kramer
- Length: 25 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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It has been 20 years since the end of the war. The dictatorial Augurs, once thought of almost as gods, were overthrown and wiped out during the conflict, their much-feared powers mysteriously failing them. Those who had ruled under them, men and women with a lesser ability known as the Gift, avoided the Augurs' fate only by submitting themselves to the rebellion's Four Tenets.
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Atrocious. Almost abusive.
- By Captain Spanky Of Nazareth on 06-10-20
By: James Islington
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A Sorceress Comes to Call
- By: T. Kingfisher
- Narrated by: Eliza Foss, Jennifer Pickens
- Length: 11 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Cordelia knows her mother is . . . unusual. Their house doesn’t have any doors between rooms—there are no secrets in this house—and her mother doesn't allow Cordelia to have a single friend. Unless you count Falada, her mother's beautiful white horse. The only time Cordelia feels truly free is on her daily rides with him. But more than simple eccentricity sets her mother apart. Other mothers don’t force their daughters to be silent and motionless for hours, sometimes days, on end. Other mothers aren’t sorcerers.
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Brilliantly creepy
- By Joella Berkner on 08-14-24
By: T. Kingfisher
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Service Model
- By: Adrian Tchaikovsky
- Narrated by: Adrian Tchaikovsky
- Length: 12 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Humanity is a dying breed, utterly reliant on artificial labor and service. When a domesticated robot gets a nasty little idea downloaded into its core programming, they murder their owner. The robot discovers they can also do something else they never did before: They can run away. Fleeing the household they enter a wider world they never knew existed, where the age-old hierarchy of humans at the top is disintegrating into ruins and an entire robot ecosystem devoted to human wellbeing is having to find a new purpose.
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Another banger from Tchaikovsky
- By J. C. Amos on 06-09-24
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Woodwalker
- Creatures of Light, Book 1
- By: Emily B. Martin
- Narrated by: Erin Rieman
- Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Exiled from the Silverwood and the people she loves, Mae has few illusions about ever returning to her home. But when she comes across three out-of-place strangers in her wanderings, she finds herself contemplating the unthinkable: risking death to help a deposed queen regain her throne. And if anyone can help Mona Alastaire of Lumen Lake, it is a former Woodwalker - a ranger whose very being is intimately tied to the woods they are sworn to protect.
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Finally on Audible!
- By PygmyOcelot on 10-02-20
By: Emily B. Martin
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The Dawnhounds
- By: Sascha Stronach
- Narrated by: Anna Coddington
- Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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The port city of Hainak is alive: its buildings, its fashion, even its weapons. But, after a devastating war and a sweeping biotech revolution, all its inhabitants want is peace, no one more so than Yat Jyn-Hok, a reformed-thief-turned-cop who patrols the streets at night. Yat has recently been demoted on the force due to “lifestyle choices” after being caught at a gay club. She’s barely holding it together. When she stumbles across a dead body on her patrol, two fellow officers gruesomely murder her and dump her into the harbor. Unfortunately for them, she wakes up.
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LOVE the creativity
- By Space Battles Fan on 07-06-22
By: Sascha Stronach
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Someone You Can Build a Nest In
- By: John Wiswell
- Narrated by: Carmen Rose
- Length: 9 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Shesheshen is a shapeshifter, who happily resides as an amorphous lump at the bottom of a ruined manor. When her rest is interrupted by hunters intent on murdering her, she constructs a body using a metal chain for a backbone, borrowed bones for limbs, and a bear trap as an extra mouth. However, the hunters chase Shesheshen out of her home and off a cliff. Badly hurt, she's found and nursed back to health by Homily, a warmhearted human, who has mistaken Shesheshen as a fellow human
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Weird, but good
- By Kris Rudin on 12-08-24
By: John Wiswell
What listeners say about The Tainted Cup
Highly rated for:
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Remi Aubuchon
- 03-04-24
Great performance
The story is entertaining and there’s humor which is translated with great success in the performance. The first chapter is long and boring but then it gets so much better. Be ready to imagine creatures out of this world with characters that have alien qualities but their emotions are so human.
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- Mara P
- 03-19-24
Wish I could read again for the first time
I loved everything about this. The writing was amazing and the narration superb. The story kept me guessing though the revelations made sense in the end. I loved the two main characters. Can’t believe I almost skipped over this. The description does not do it justice. Possibly my new favorite book.
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- Chloe Gray
- 03-25-24
Relatable unique characters
An strong & unlikely trio is formed to save a world both unrecognizable and very current
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- K. Adams
- 03-25-24
great voice, great story
i want more please of this world and can't imagine Dim and Anna voiced by anyone else!
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- Erin M. Maxin
- 04-06-24
Great story with outstanding narration
I hope this is the beginning of a series! I would love to return to this world and follow anew adventure. This narrator infused these characters with such life and personality…I’d listen to him read the phone book.
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- KJH
- 04-12-24
Genre Defying Thriller
I don't believe i've ever read a book quite like this and I mean it in the very best way. This is a mash up of Sherlock Holmes, Shadow and Bone and Godzilla that takes place in the future/past on a planet somewhere in the universe. It had me from the start and I couldn't wait to put on my ear buds each day until the very end. The characters were great, but special mention has to go to the Sherlock Holmes of the story, Anna. I loved each of her parts and the crazy way she spoke to everyone. Andrew Fallaize did an incredible job with all of the voices but he nailed it with Anna. I truly hope this falls into Netflix or HBO's hands as it would make an amazing series. Best of the year so far and can't wait to hear the next book in the series.
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- PYT866
- 06-17-24
Great Pace and Plot
Always love a good mystery!!! The character of Anna will keep you on your toys as told from the POV of Din. If I say more I will say too much. A very good read!!!!!
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- Gus MoMé
- 06-27-24
Difficult to find a bad thing
Do you like a smart mystery thatvhrabs you from the get go and does not let you go? Do you like genius characters that are fun to listen to and are always switch on? This is your book. Fast oaced, smart, attentive to detail and not a word wasted. It is not fantastical, romantic, or political. It is just a well crafted, plot heavy detective story. BravO!
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- Claudejer
- 06-10-24
Fantastic!
I very much hope this will become a series. Wonderful characters and great mystery plus an intriguing world.
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- Lina K
- 09-12-24
Creative Fantasy Setting and Great Detective Mystery
What a surprisingly wonderful story to listen to! Everything was fantastic. All of the characters, the setting, and the intrigue. Fantastical and incredibly immersive.
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