I have to confess, it took me a minute to really get into Tainted Cup—I picked it up and put it down (or let it expire off Libby) a few times well before the Hugos. One of my "Scent Head" friends who loves a good Diptyque candle came to visit me in July (and brought me a Diptyque candle) and told me how much he had really enjoyed the Ana and Din mysteries. I threw myself back into both books and I'm really glad I did.
It's a strange "bio-punk" kind of world—they have advanced gene editing and can (apparently) resurrect extinct races of intellectually superior but possibly less stable beings, but they don't have cell phones and use mycological solutions for HVAC and lighting (do they even have electricity?). One thing I'm not sure they do in this world is have FUN. Everything seems to be quite a lot of work to be part of this empire. Din has undergone some serious genetic changes in order to become an "engraver"—and he triggers his eidetic memory skills with scents. Ana, well, she's a different animal. Literally. One tic in this book is that her smile is repeatedly described as "predatory," which makes me think she must be smiling like an absolute lunatic (thinking Jack Nicholson in The Shining).
These are more detective novels than murder mysteries and the world-building is sometimes opaque and challenging to track, but that's why we have ebooks to search for words and recall context, I suppose. I also listened to the audiobooks for both of these books, and found them to be very enjoyable.
Din is a dyslexic, tall, dark and handsome young man who isn't averse to surreptitiously picking up a few "skills" here and there to help with his investigations. He seems to be pansexual but has a same-sex romantic attachment from the first book, Tainted Cup. He also blows off steam by picking up one night stands.
Ana appears to be late middle-aged with wild white hair—a genius with yellow eyes like a wolf or a cat when she's not blindfolded to reduce stimulus. She fuels her genius for identifying patterns from Din's reports and the mountains of books she reads with a paleo diet of raw animal flesh in breathtaking quantities. While Din comes from a commoner background, Ana's background is a bit more mysterious—and it's a mystery she maintains on purpose, surprising Din with her ability to roleplay in the moment to manipulate social elites, and with the breadth and depth of her knowledge.
Ana is a savant operating on a totally different level from everyone around her. For example, when she tasks Din to visit the island where all the Leviathan extractions are processed and learns he will be wearing a full PPE suit with helmet, he worries about how he will be able to provide a proper report. Din can't easily supplement his memory with written notes the way other investigators might. Ana has already solved the problem in a way Din never could have anticipated. It's the kind of moment that reminds you why she's indispensable: she thinks several moves ahead, in directions nobody else is even looking. And Din seems to be learning.
The map of the empire raises questions. In our world, we know where seals, sea lions and turtles come ashore to reproduce, or where salmon spawn and die. We work around those patterns to help avoid interspecies conflict. The people of this world build right in the path of these incredibly dangerous creatures (no two of them look the same) and put people in real jeopardy despite erecting massive walls and staffing them with trained military personnel.
There are defenses in concentric circles, with the most elite, protected areas in the first ring, farthest from the sea. Yet farther north at the top right of the map, we see no wall because the Leviathans don't come ashore there. There's also heaps of court intrigue and empire negotiations with a holdout kingdom—which holds the processing area for the Leviathans. It seems like everything this empire does is to create as much discomfort for the people as possible. It's always hot and wet, but people wear heavy wool uniforms that are incredibly uncomfortable. If it's practically a coastal jungle, why do they all have to wear heavy capes as part of their uniforms? The empire does not have the best interests of the people at heart. Obviously.
We are somewhat limited in our view of this world, from Din's perspective, which means we don't know what lies beyond the sea, or even to the west of the landmass we see on the map. Does anyone go there? What else is on this planet? Is it just one big landmass with a few islands off the coast? We aren't getting massive info dumps about "the whole world," which I appreciate a lot. This world is developed in a way that builds intrigue and lets me follow where Din is leading me.
While the main "mystery" is mostly solved early in A Drop of Corruption, the pair spend the rest of the story chasing the elusive killer and trying to pin down the connection to a massive bio-pharma plant that processes (and perhaps cultivates) the critical ingredients for the mysterious Leviathans that live in the adjacent sea—which form the basis of all the genetic modifications that people utilize in this world.
What I really liked is that both books wrapped up the primary problem and challenges by the end and along the way - the author built a foundation of details for the characters, their interiority and personalities that intrigued me and was able to keep that momentum going through the second book. I'm very much looking forward to the third book.
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