This review was originally posted on Books of My Heart


Review copy was received from NetGalley. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

I had such a favorable experience with The Tainted Cup I was eager to continue Shadow of the Leviathan series. I chose the ebook version again even though I now purchased the audio version of the first book. I am encouraged to go read this author's backlist also.

I'm seeing more of these scifi mysteries and they are a real favorite combining my favorite genres.

While the world-building and plot are complex and interesting, the reading is easy and fun. The pace was comfortable and kept me engaged, even in a longer book. I would read the series in order as the personal aspects build on the previous book.

This fantasy world has augmented human, political classes, and huge monsters. We learn about some of the different types of augmentations which also divides them somewhat into the kind of work they perform. Travel between regions seems to take time and they travel by cart or by horse. People seem to only be knowledgeable about their own area and not well traveled unless they are more wealthy or travel for work. But usually investigators do not travel and stay in their own region.

I have come to love our main characters Din and Ana. They are curious and not easily classified. Din is an engraver, which is an augmented human, who remembers everything and can recite it back. Ana is an investigator who shuts out stimuli to solve mysteries. They solve problems with a very Sherlock Holmes style with much observing and witness statements. Din goes out to gather the evidence and report back to Ana. Ana is genius but Din has some skills too.

We learned a bit more of their personal history as they come out to Yarrowdale to investigate a murder. Yarrow has a king who has planned to turn over the kingdom to the Empire. The Treasury people have been negotiating the integration, ie. the taxes. A man from the Treasury has turned up dead. It gets worse when they realize a number of healing potions have been stolen.

This series is brilliant and I hope there will be many books. I want to learn much more about these characters and their world.

I loved this book even more than the first. Excellent writing, loved the fantasy and murder mystery elements, but that it was also grounded in the characters. I loved the banter, how multi-layered it was, and how it came together in the end. Will definitely recommend.

I was offered an arc for this from NetGalley and I am thankful for that. I did not like the first book and rated it 3 stars so I was a little skeptical going into this. I ended up DNF’ing this 33 pages in. It was super boring and I couldn’t really keep up with all that was going on. I also didn’t really like the lgbtq in it. I don’t typically read that if I can help it. I will not be continuing this series.

A Drop of Corruption takes everything that made The Tainted Cup exceptional—impossible murders, eerie biology, and razor-sharp wit—and elevates it to new heights. This sequel delivers another mind-bending crime, even stranger biological concepts, and, most importantly, more of Ana Dolabra—the empire’s most enigmatic and formidable investigator.

This time, Ana and her steadfast assistant, Dinios Kol, are sent to the empire’s fringes to investigate the disappearance of a treasury officer. The case quickly turns gruesome, featuring dismemberment, missing body parts, and a killer who seemingly walks through walls. Ana, true to form, unravels the surface-level mystery within minutes, but as the investigation deepens, the complexity of the case intensifies. The stakes? Nothing less than the survival of the empire against the looming leviathan threat.

The narrative thrives on its dynamic between Ana and Din. Much like Watson to Sherlock, Din provides a grounded perspective, allowing the reader to witness Ana’s brilliance through his eyes. However, this installment explores Din’s internal conflicts in greater depth. Originally joining the Iudex to settle his father’s debts, he now finds himself questioning whether his true calling lies in solving crimes or fighting alongside the Legion to protect the empire.

The world-building continues to astonish, expanding on the empire’s genetic wizardry, the transformative properties of leviathan blood, and the mysterious Shroud—a living, organic space unlike anything else. New characters seamlessly integrate into this bizarre yet captivating universe, with Mala, an investigator with an unnervingly heightened sense of smell, standing out as a particularly intriguing addition.

True to Bennett’s style, the antagonist is far from a one-dimensional villain. Instead, they are a tragic, cunning figure whose backstory unfolds gradually, revealing layers of motivation and pain. While the middle of the book occasionally lingers on intricate details, the prose remains so compelling that it’s difficult to find fault.

Ultimately, A Drop of Corruption solidifies the Shadow of the Leviathan series as one of the most remarkable fantasy-mystery sagas of the decade. With its gripping plot, intricate character development, and unparalleled world-building, this book is both a page-turner and a thought-provoking read. Highly recommended, and I eagerly await the next installment—if Bennett continues on this trajectory, this series could become a landmark in the genre.

I adore RJB's writing. It's unique and refreshing and unlike many fantasy books being published right now.

A Drop of Corruption take us back into the world of the Levithian's and goes at a pace that you can't put down. I was enthralled the entire time reading this and on the edge of my seat. I feel this is a book you must experience because to say too much leads to spoilers but lets just say, I'm always trying to solve the mystery before my lovable man Dinios Kol, and I never ever ever do! And the reveal left me gasping!

RJB is truly writing like no other! His unique worlds, fantastic character building, and awesome magic systems are so well thought out and engaging.

Cannot wait to see what RJB does next!

Thank you as always to Del Rey and Netgalley for an early copy for exchange for an honest review!

Another 5 star read from Mr. Bennett. I enjoyed his Foundryside trilogy, and The Tainted Cup was absolutely phenomenal. The writing is fantastic, the story very well paced and told mainly from Din's POV. We meet a lot more characters and explore more of this fantasy world. Again, Ana proves hilarious and brilliant, and I'm so intrigued by her secret modifications and her overall history before Din was assigned her assistant. I cannot wait for the third installment!!

4.5 Ana and Kol are back with another mystery to solve! If you enjoyed the first one you will enjoy this second installment just as much. The world building continues in this novel and it is nicely interwoven in the main mystery plot. I was able to guess part of the big reveal but it didn’t hinder my enjoyment of the story. Ana and Kol continue to have an endearing and humorous relationship that has smiling multiple times.

Be sure to read the authors note at the end. Made me like the book even more.

Thanks to net galley and the publisher for an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

My level of obsession with these fictional characters and this fictional world is a bit alarming, but it’s Robert Jackson Bennett’s fault. I didn’t know how badly I needed fantasy mystery books, but now it’s kind of all I want? Why bother with fantasy or mystery alone when you can have both? The series is fantastic, no notes, thank G-d I saw book #3 is listed (currently Untitled) on Goodreads.

Go read The Tainted Cup and then A Drop of Corruption right now and thank me later.

I honestly don’t know how to review this book without spoiling anything. All I can say is it’s even better than the first one and you so need to read it!!

Read the description, read the book, and be amazed. Not much more I can tell you. A Drop of Corruption is the second book in the Shadow of the Leviathan, An Ana and Din Mystery series. It’s a fantasy mystery series – and is every bit as good as the first book, The Tainted Cup. Which was beyond excellent, actually.

It’s a mystery, a detective story, a police procedural. Ana Dolabra and her assistant Dinios Kol get the most confusing, confounding, seemingly unsolvable cases. And they solve them. It takes place in some Empire in some (maybe future?) time, populated with odd creatures and people (?). Yes, it’s a fantasy, but be open-minded and patient if you think you don’t like fantasies, because this series is much, much more. Sure, it’s full of confusing names and words and locations, but it’s really an action-packed, thought-provoking, often humorous commentary on life, politics, emotions, ambition, culture, customs, and justice. The writing is stellar, the plot fast-paced and smooth, and the characters fascinating. The mystery is complex with enough red herrings to keep you guessing but enough solid clues to have the solution seem logical and plausible. Although the story is filled with those unusual, almost unpronounceable names and places, and practices and procedures that are often baffling, the attention to detail throughout is impressive and there is a layer of recognizable almost-normality overlaying everything; of course greed, avarice, and evil intent appear in fantasy as well as real life. The language is just different enough to keep an otherworldly feel but familiar all the same: nocked for notched, militi for militia keep you in the flow.

The most amazing, and enjoyable, thing about both A Drop of Corruption and the previous book, The Tainted Cup is that I very often completely forgot this this was a fantasy, that the detectives were enhanced beings, modified to strengthen specific skills, that they used words I didn’t know, that their features, color, body shape and limbs and mobility were not those of regular old humans I would meet in the grocery store because that is how I often thought of them. Police officers working on a difficult case, going to foreign places, encountering kingdoms and armies and scientists and families. Author Robert Jackson Bennett is so skilled at drawing you into the story, immersing you so completely that all you think about is the mystery and how Ana and Din are going to solve it. Then you swing back to the fantasy elements and it’s a delightful surprise.

If you like adventure, suspense, excitement, action, humor, and an absorbing mystery then this series is for you. It’s expertly crafted and written, perfectly paced and smooth and completely satisfying. Thanks to Random House Publishing Group / Penguin Random House for providing an advance copy of A Drop of Corruption via NetGalley. I was so pleased to receive a copy of this book, highly recommend it and hope another case for Ana and Din to solve is available soon. I voluntarily leave this review; all opinions are my own.

A Drop of Corruption is a fantastic second installment to the Shadow of the Leviathan series. It’s just as good as the first with more immersive world-building and another cleverly-solved murder mystery filled with political intrigue and even more amazing characters. I loved reading more of the wonderful dynamic between Ana and Din with the addition of Malo who complements them so well. It’s a great read for anyone seeking a captivating fantasy world with a plot full of puzzles to be solved and secrets to be unraveled.

A Drop of Corruption (Shadow of the Leviathan #2) by Robert Jackson Bennett, 480 pages. Del Rey (Penguin Random House), 2025. $29. Lgbtqia
Language: R (155 swears, 67 “f” + British swears); Mature Content: R; Violence: R
BUYING ADVISORY: HS - NO; ADULT - OPTIONAL
APPEALS TO: SOME
Dinios likes the work he does with Ana as her assistant investigator, but he longs to transfer to be a Legionnaire—like the lover he left behind. Those desires get pushed aside in favor of their newest case, though, a victim who disappeared from a tower room and ended up dead in the canals. Din and Ana are constantly five steps behind this murderer, and it could become the first case they leave unsolved.
The world building still fascinates me in this second installment of the series where readers not only get to see another part of the Empire—or soon-to-be-part of the Empire—but also the place where their augmentations are created. Din and Ana, and the other characters they work with, feel complicated and real, even as they do their work with greater-than-human abilities. They somehow straddle the line between relatable and enigmatic. While I remember Ana being crass in the first book, she becomes more so in this one, partially because of the choices Din makes to cope with his personal life.
Race is discussed, but they are not the same races as the ones in our world. The mature content rating is for drug and alcohol use, crude language, innuendo, nudity, and sex. The violence rating is for corpses, assault, blood and gore, mentions of suicide, and murder.
Reviewer: Carolina Herdegen

Just as Sherlock has Moriarty, Ana has found her match in A Drop of Corruption as she and Din hunt a genius killer in the far edges of The Empire - this time set in the town of Yarrow, where the Apoths work on extracting blood from the bodies of the Leviathans in order to make grafts in the mysterious Shroud. This book has it all - more incredible banter between Ana and Din, court intrigue, calculating killers and mystery, an extremely fascinating fantasy world! This series continues to impress in a genre-bending category all on its own. I highly recommend to anyone.

Posted on GoodReads:

ARC kindly provided by publisher.

If you enjoyed the first book, get ready! I’d say this one is equally good, possibly better. The combination of Sherlockian mystery combined with very interesting world building that expands even further in a new region of the world. I know some found the characters boring in Tainted Cup, but I personally I love Din and Ana, and this does feel like a good continuation of their stories and growth.

Overall, Shadow of the Leviathan series is excellent, very high recommendation! Shaping up to be one of my favorite series of all time!

4.25 stars! I really loved this book much more than the first one in the Shadow of the Leviathan series. I am so glad I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for a review. The complexities of this fantasy world are so impressive and the author really paints a picture immersing the reader right in it. Ana continues to be a hoot and very multilayered, and there was a lot of detail in this sequel built upon groundwork laid in the first book, which I think also set us up for some grand reveals about her past for later in the series. Din surprised me with a lot of the different aspects of his background and personality, especially when the first book described him as being very tightly wound and reserved - it was good to get to know him even better. He took some turns from his behavior in The Tainted Cup, but it still felt realistic and I still find him very likable. I also enjoyed the new character Malo and I hope she returns. The prose is often very poetic, which can be hard to achieve when writing about highly technical scientific (even if it's fictional science) concepts. Although at times it felt like there were almost too many sub-mysteries to unravel, it was undeniably impressive how all the pieces of the complex puzzle came together toward the end. I wasn't sure about this series when I read the first book, but A Drop of Corruption has me sold on it.

I devoured A Drop of Corruption shortly after the first in the series (The Tainted Cup) - I cannot get enough of the wonderful world that Robert Jackson Bennett has created. It’s a genre blend of High Fantasy meets whodunnit female Sherlock Holmes if he liberally dropped the f bomb, and Watson was the main character. Ana and Din are the perfect investigative duo - and while the crime is the mystery, the book is so much more than that - drip feeding world building and other (much bigger book spanning) mysteries alongside the main crime. The characters are all brilliantly done, so funny yet poignant, and genuine social messages for those who want them (and still action packed and drenched in dead bodies and sword fights!) Ana and Din’s relationship grows on the first book’s foundation, and while this book series could be building to some epic finale, I am also ok with just a Poirot-esque series of endless murder mystery puzzles for them to team up on - I’ll be along for that ride any day.

Thank you to Random House / Del Rey Publishing for the ARC in exchange for this honest review .

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
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WHAT'S A DROP OF CORRUPTION ABOUT?
Dinios Kol arrives (as is his custom) in the canton of Yarrowdale, ahead of his boss, Ana Dolabra. They've been assigned to investigate the disappearance of a Treasury officer. This officer—and the rest of the Treasury delegation—is in Yarrowdale to negotiate with the King the final steps of Yarrowdale fully joining the Empire once and for all.

Right now, Yarrowdale is (rightly or wrongly) considered a backwater territory, valuable for one thing only—it's a place that the leviathans do not travel to, so their corpses can be moved there and harvested for the copious near-magical substances used by the Empire. (incidentally, I found this whole aspect just tremendously cool. I won't say more than that, but if we only got a novella about this part, I'd have been satisfied). This is the only place where this is safely done, so it's hard to understate the strategic importance of Yarrowdale.

So one of the Empire's chief negotiators going missing is no small thing—so Dolabra is assigned to find him.

Not at all shockingly (to any reader), the corpse of the officer is quickly located once Kol arrives. Its condition raises eyebrows and concerns—and that's just the beginning, the more they investigate the circumstances around this killing the less sense things make, and the greatness of the mind behind it is seen. Dolabra is excited by the challenge, while everyone around her becomes more and more apprehensive with each discovery or conclusion she makes.

I won't go on much beyond this—I'd love to summarize the whole book for you, but why? More victims are found, more questions are raised, the stakes keep climbing higher, and the implications for the future of the Empire are great.

DOLABRA AND KOL
When I talked about The Tainted Cup , I didn't really talk about the primary characters. I hesitate to start now because I'm going to have a hard time stopping. But let me try to dip my toe into it.

Ana Dolabra is a brilliant investigator for the Empire—being sent to the trickiest investigations and given almost unlimited authority to get the answers she seeks. Due to some physical (and psychological) limitations—and the fact that she has zero interpersonal skills (and that's being generous)—she requires a deputy to handle most of the actual investigating, bringing her the evidence and testimony that she needs to solve the crimes.

Which is where Dinios Kol comes in. He's been altered to have a perfect memory—sights, sounds, smells, conversation...you name it, he remembers it all (even if he doesn't want to). So he's the perfect assistant for someone who will not interact with people of her own volition. There are jobs he'd rather perform—and places he'd rather perform them. But his family needs money to pay medical debt, and this is the surest way for him to accomplish that. He escapes into drink, drugs (I think it's more like tobacco than anything, but I'm prepared to be shown that I'm wrong), and sex as often as he can. But is reliable when the chips are down—he has to be.

Ana Dolabra is very much in the Nero Wolfe mold—purposefully so. But she breaks the mold in all the right ways—her reasons for relying on someone else to interact with the outside world are different and less self-imposed. Her ego is as large (I wasn't sure that was possible), and she takes some of these crimes as a personal attack on her and her genius (like Wolfe occasionally does). But she relishes the challenge—and talks openly about enjoying this case compared to the boring murders and whatnot she's solved recently. She has a strange relationship with eating so that sometimes she sounds like her antecedent and other times the complete opposite.

Most people will not care about this (and I assure you, that paragraph could be longer)—but I'm incapable of reading any section featuring Dolabra without pausing to contrast her to Wolfe. She never comes out bad in these comparisons—just different in a creative way.

Her Archie Goodwin, Dinios Kol, can be compared and contrasted in the same way. I started to say he's less like Archie, and I really want to. But I can really think of one major difference—what drives them. Kol's motivation for the work (at this point, anyway, it may be shifting toward the end) is different. So he behaves with a little less loyalty. This makes him more interesting and makes up for his lack of humor. Ah, look there—I found another notable difference. Kol is far too serious to really be an Archie, but I wouldn't want to change a thing about him.

BUILDING ON THE WORLDBUILDING
In The Tainted Cup, Bennett introduced us to a fascinating and complex world of kaiju-esque monsters, magic-feeling science, and a massive empire that's keeping humanity alive. it was both awesome and strange. In A Drop of Corruption, it's almost as if Bennet tells the reader, "So you've seen the typical in this world, but you ain't ready for this." As strange and terrible as we thought things were...ha.

We get to see new augmentations, we get to see how outsiders (or semi-outsiders) regard the Empire, we learn a whole lot of history about the Empire, the monsters, the science behind the augmentations, and so much more. I'm having trouble expressing it all.

In both books so far Bennett can bring the unbelievable and indescribable to life. Din will start a sentence by saying something like, "Words cannot express ___" or "It's too incredible to explain" or something like that—and then will falteringly describe it in such a way that the reader comes away with a pretty good idea of what Din saw. Even when he's not calling his shot like that, item after item, phenomenon after phenomenon, creature after creature that really shouldn't make sense when written about comes through with a level of detail that leads the reader to think they're imagining what Bennett imagined.

Sure....it's likely that no two readers will have similar mental images. But that's not important—you'll think you do.

THE AUTHOR'S NOTE
The Author's Note (largely an Acknowledgement section, but a little bit more) is a must-read. I don't know if you're prone to reading them—particularly if they feel more like an Acknowledgment than anything else. But make an exception for this one. It's worth your time.

SO, WHAT DID I THINK ABOUT A DROP OF CORRUPTION?
I was blown away by The Tainted Cup, and so I was apprehensive about this one—could it live up to it? I'm pleased to say that it did. I very likely enjoyed this much more—because I was ready for the strangeness and could just let it build on what the prior book did.

I feel bad saying I had fun reading about all the trauma that these victims went through, but I really did. Kol and Dolabra—and Kol's new local acquaintances are just so well-conceived and vividly drawn, that it'd be harder to be disinterested than captivated.

The mystery kept me guessing until the end (except for the time I thought I'd figured it out, and I was very wrong). There was even a point where I wrote in my notes, "Could this be a redder herring?" and it was anything but. I won't go into details so you can be fooled like I was, but man... The only thing I like more than the smug satisfaction of figuring out a mystery before a brilliant detective is an author who can fool me into that smugness only to pull the rug out from under me. Not to get elitist or anything, but a fantasy writer should be worse at this than a mystery writer. Bennett didn't get that memo.

I do think you could read this book without the first in the series—but don't do that to yourself. Buy a copy of this now (or get on your Library's waitlist), but get The Tainted Cup at the same time. If I'm right about where this series is going (or even almost close to right), you're going to want to be ready for it. This is just dynamite.

This book deserves more compliments from me—but who has the time? (not the guy who meant to post this a week or so ago). A great mystery novel, a great fantasy novel, with characters that you'd want to read about even if the plots weren't worth the time or trouble.

Disclaimer: I received this eARC from Random House Publishing Group - Del Rey, Random House Worlds, Inklore via NetGalley in exchange for this post which contains my honest opinion—thanks to both for this.

I was hooked from the beginning!!
It was amazing and engaging.
I was instantly sucked in by the atmosphere and writing style.
The characters were all very well developed .
The writing is exceptional and I was hooked after the first sentence.

Huge thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for the ARC!

Okay. So. I just finished this book and I feel like I’ve been hit by a literary truck in the best possible way. I already knew Bennett could deliver an epic story (hello Foundryside), but A Drop of Corruption is on another level. It’s like if Agatha Christie and Neil Gaiman had a very dark, very magical baby — and then set it loose in a crumbling empire full of secrets and decay.

The mystery at the heart of this story? Insane. A Treasury officer disappears from a locked, heavily guarded room in this high-security research compound (think arcane science lab meets creepy monastery), and no one can figure out how it happened. From there, it just spirals in the best way.

We follow Ana Dolabra, who is honestly one of the most compelling protagonists I’ve read in a while. She’s this brilliant, snarky, no-nonsense investigator with a ton of secrets herself. I was obsessed with her. And her assistant, Dinios Kol — sweet summer child that he is — is such a great contrast. Their dynamic gives off big “grumpy genius + slightly overwhelmed apprentice” energy, and it works. Also shoutout to Malo, their enhanced warden with sharp senses and sharper instincts — she’s a quiet powerhouse and I loved her presence.

The vibes are immaculate: eerie, unsettling, and totally immersive. The slow-burn tension that builds with every chapter... and just when you think you’re starting to piece things together… another twist. Another betrayal. Another moment that makes you question everything.
This is more than just a fantasy mystery I would say. It’s about power, corruption (obviously), and the impossible choices people make when they’re trapped by systems way bigger than themselves. It’s clever. It’s layered. It’s haunting.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Pub date: April 1, 2025

If you love a smart, twisty mystery in a dark fantasy world with razor-sharp characters and moral ambiguity — this is 100% for you.

A Drop of Corruption sees the return of Ana Dolabra, the Empire’s most eccentric—and exasperating—investigator, alongside her perpetually harried assistant, Dinios Kol. This time, the stakes are even higher, the mystery even knottier, and the world-building even richer as Robert Jackson Bennett expands his Shadow of the Leviathan series in all the best ways.

This time, Ana and Din are sent to the Empire’s borders, to the canton of Yarrowdale, a remote outpost home to the Shroud—the Empire’s high-security research facility, where fallen Titans are studied for their volatile magical properties. But tensions are high in Yarrowdale. The local king has been negotiating with the Imperial Treasury over the Empire’s annexation of the region when suddenly, one of the delegation members vanishes from a locked tower room. With no way in or out, it’s an impossible crime—so naturally, Ana and Din are called in to solve it.

However, they soon realize they are hunting not a missing man but rather his murderer -- and one with an uncanny knack for disguise and whose means and motives stymy even Ana's analytical abilities. This adversary seems to slip through locked doors with ease, evade detection at every turn, and, most unsettling of all, predict Ana’s every move before she even makes it. Worse, this unknown assailant may be assembling a powerful weapon that targets the secrets associated with the Shroud, threatening the Empire's most powerful secrets.

I adored this second entry in the Shadow of the Leviathan series. It’s everything you want from a sequel — more intricate world-building, a twistier mystery, and deeper insight into Ana and Din’s inner workings. Fans of The Tainted Cup will find themselves right at home with another thrilling investigation, full of tension, intrigue, and laugh-out-loud moments between Ana and Din. Bennett doesn’t just deliver more of the same — he expands the world, complicates the stakes, and crafts an even more gripping mystery.

Fantasy and mystery lovers who haven’t started the series yet could technically begin here, but I recommend reading in order to fully appreciate the layered storytelling. Either way, if you love locked-room mysteries with an imaginative fantasy twist, this is a series you won’t want to miss.