By Dennis Fischman

Writing a science fiction murder mystery is difficult. As I pointed out in my review of Arkady Martine’s fine example A Memory Called Empire, to play fair with the reader, the science fiction has to be clear and convincing – a world we can imagine, whose rules make sense.  Simultaneously, the means and motives have to fit within that world (while being recognizable to us pitiful humans of the 2020’s).

The Tainted Cup, by Robert Jackson Bennett, is the perfect blend of science fiction and murder mystery, with main characters you can care about and at least one femme fatale I ended up pitying.

The Tainted Cup, by Robert Jackson Bennett Del Rey, 2024

Here’s the setup: in a far-flung corner of a galactic empire, an Imperial officer who’s seemingly been stuck there as a demotion shows up dead in his own home – with a tree growing up and through his body. Who killed him, why, and how?

Some might object that this is fantasy, not science. I think, instead, that it follows classic science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke’s Law: “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” As you follow the investigation, you learn what is and isn’t possible in this world, so you can try to solve the mystery yourself.

The investigators are a crotchety, brilliant, autistic women with a penchant for blindfolding herself, and a young bisexual man who’s been genetically altered to have a perfect memory (even for documents written in a language he doesn’t read!). The homage to Holmes and Watson is apparent, but I think Ana Dolabra may owe something to Ann Cleeves’ Vera Stanhope, too.

I have only two criticisms: there is no accounting for why the world is organized along medieval aristocratic lines except that it’s customary to do that in the borderlands of fantasy and science fiction. I could easily imagine a capitalist version of the same thing. So, why?

Also, the big reveal is a “You’re probably wondering why I called you all here today” type confrontation, which is a dated plot device. The excuse is that our heroes need to extort a confession from the wrongdoer, and that works, but it’s still too conventional for a novel that’s inventive in other ways.

I am looking forward to the next of the series!

Dennis Fischman is a member of the Somerville Public Library’s Mystery Book Club and an inveterate reader.