The Tainted Cup

The Tainted Cup is a fantasy murder mystery set in the Empire of Khanum, which shelters behind a sea wall. Each wet season leviathans rise from the ocean and must be driven back. Dinios ’Din’ Kol, a young man altered to have perfect memory, becomes assistant to the eccentric investigator Ana Dolabra.

Their first case is the death of an engineer found in a wealthy family’s mansion, killed by a poison that made plants burst through his body. When a leviathan breaches the wall nearby, they learn that other engineers responsible for it have died the same way. It is the first novel in the Shadow of the Leviathan series.