The Tainted Cup - Robert Jackson Bennett
I have a general rule that I don't start reading a new fantasy series until it's completed, which you can blame Patrick Rothfuss and Robert Jordan (and, by extension, Brandon Sanderson) for. Something made me set that rule aside for The Tainted Cup, though, and I'm very glad that I did.
This is what I've been craving in modern fantasy - something that feels new and exciting and that is also really well written. This was a real breath of fresh air and I'm fully locked in for the rest of the books.
I love genre-blending, and the fact that this takes itself very seriously as a murder mystery is its biggest strength. And it's a really good murder mystery, too, that obeys all the rules of classic Christie-esque mysteries. All of the clues are there and we could put them together if we tried to (for the most part), and the detective's reveal of everything at the end feels satisfying and real. I loved all the characters and their complexities, and I really enjoyed that they existed as queer/disabled/neurodivergent people in the world without that being the focus of the story.
My only complaint is that we didn't see enough of the leviathans, but I suspect that we'll get more of that in future books. And it's such a minor complaint, too, because everything here is fantastic. It's the weirdness of China Mieville's Bas-Lag novels with the twists and turns of Christie or Arthur Conan Doyle, with a hint of grimy grimdark fantasy action thrown in for good measure. Easily one of my favourite reads of the year so far, and my favourite fantasy novel in recent memory.