A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett

My thoughts on this series so far!

The brilliant detective Ana Dolabra may have finally met her match in the gripping sequel to The Tainted Cup.

It’s time for another ARC review! One of my favorite parts of getting into Goodreads and Bookstagram in the past couple of years—and now Substack—has been the opportunity to read so many awesome books before they come out.

A Drop of Corruption is the second book in the Shadow of the Leviathan series, but I’ll focus my review more on the series as a whole since I think that would be a lot more useful in helping people decide if it’s something they might be interested in reading. The first book in this series, The Tainted Cup, was one of my last and favorite reads of 2023, so I was more than happy when the publisher reached out with a copy of the sequel :)

Another reviewer described The Tainted Cup as “if Knives Out took place in a fantasy world and Benoit Blanc was a crazy old lady” and TBH I couldn’t come up with a more apt comparison myself. Robert Jackson Bennett has created one of the most unique fantasy worlds I’ve read, so although it took me a while to understand all of the terms, once I did I was so intrigued.

This series takes place in a mysterious world where deadly contagions abound, people modify and enhance their bodies to move up the ranks in the empire, and the emperor’s legion must maintain sea walls to push back the leviathans that march on shore each wet season. One of the other areas of service to the empire is the Iudex—or investigators—which is where we find investigator Ana Dolabra and her assistant, Din. Din is an engraver, someone who has been magically altered to possess perfect memory, and therefore remembers every single thing he has observed in their murder investigations. Each of the books follows Ana and Din solving a different murder mystery together.

A fantasy murder mystery book wasn’t something I had encountered before, and I really love how unique this series feels to anything else I’ve read. There’s plenty of humor and a sprinkling of romance mixed in with all the unsettling things we have to witness as readers. This series uses a lot of creepy plant and body horror—the only book that came to mind when trying to remember where I’ve encountered anything similar is Mexican Gothic. If you liked the weird mushroom horror in that book, you’d definitely enjoy this series.

In A Drop of Corruption, the stakes of Din and Ana’s investigation are higher than ever—failing could mean exposing the entire empire to a deadly contagion that would ultimately destroy it. And political hostility awaits them at every twist and turn of their investigation.

I wished that this sequel had included a little inkling of obvious romance like the first one did to break up all the bleakness a little more, but the romantic yearning was definitely still there and I think it will definitely be returning in the next book. And Din continues to be one of my favorite protagonists ever—cunning yet vulnerable, extremely talented yet plagued with self-doubt. Problematic at times, but I still adore him.

If anyone is on the lookout for a fantasy series—or mystery series, or both—that feels wholly unique, I would definitely recommend picking up The Tainted Cup and A Drop of Corruption. And you don’t just have to take my word for it—The Tainted Cup was a nominee for readers’ favorite fantasy in the 2024 Goodreads Awards!

The first book is out now, and the second will be out on April 1st here in the U.S.