Review: A Drop of Corruption : An Ana and Din Mystery (Shadow of the Leviathan Book2) by Robert Jackson Bennett

SiriusB Reviews Category / B+ Reviews / Book ReviewsFantasy / fantasy adventure / murder mystery1 Comments

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The eccentric detective Ana Dolabra matches wits with a seemingly omniscient adversary in this brilliant fantasy-mystery from the author of The Tainted Cup.

“Wonderfully clever and compulsively readable . . . another winning blend of fantasy and classic detection.”—Publishers Weekly

In the canton of Yarrowdale, at the very edge of the Empire’s reach, a Treasury officer has disappeared into thin air—vanishing from a room within a heavily guarded tower, its door and windows locked from the inside.

To solve the case, the Empire calls on its most brilliant and mercurial detective, the great Ana Dolabra. At her side, as always, is her bemused assistant Dinios Kol.

Ana soon discovers that they are investigating not a disappearance but a murder—and one of surpassing cunning, carried out by an opponent who can pass through warded doors like a ghost.

Worse still, the killer may be targeting the high-security compound known as the Shroud, where the Empire harvests fallen titans for the volatile magic found in their blood. Should it fall, the Empire itself will grind to a halt, robbed of the magic that allows its wheels of power to turn.

Din has seen his superior solve impossible cases before. But as the death toll grows and their quarry predicts each of Ana’s moves with uncanny foresight, he fears that she has at last met an enemy she can’t defeat.

Review:

Dear Robert Jackson Bennett,

I preordered this book almost right after I finished the first one and I was very happy that I did.  I am not really sure how much time passed in this world between the end of the first and beginning of the second book, but I think it was less than a year. I could be wrong of course.

It was interesting to me how our narrator Din was already shown as being a more mature and experienced investigator, but at the same time he still has his youth with him.

As the blurb tells you the mystery investigation takes our main characters to the canon of Yarrowdale, the region which may or may not join the Empire soon and the Empire Treasury delegation is here in Yarrowdale too, discussing some things with the rulers of Yarrowdale when one of the Treasury officers dies under the circumstances described in the blurb.  Of course a “not so fast” warning to the reader can be appropriate here. The treasury officer did not die under the circumstances described in the blurb, not even close.  The mystery takes Ana and Din to investigate some things which some people clearly would have liked to stay hidden. Nothing as it seems as the main plot begins to unravel and Ana and Din work very hard, however for a long time they are unable to discover anything, or at least not much.

The mystery became very dark and in the process of the investigation a lot of people die for various reasons. The author here again incorporates some social commentary in the book. I thought that within the story the social commentary so far was very well done, however I start to roll my eyes a little bit at the author’s afterwords. I feel as if he did not want to break the fourth wall in the book and I am grateful for that, however instead we get some editorializing at the end. Kings are bad. Okay. I think I am going to pass on reading the afterword in the third book.

I enjoyed how Din’s and Ana’s motivations were fleshed out in the book. Din became even more interesting to me and Ana as well.

Unfortunately, my speculation after reading this book would be that I am now convinced more than ever that Ana would be toasted at the end of this series. I would love to be wrong on this one, but the revelation about who she is (or as much of the revelation as we were allowed to see in this book) makes me think that.  I cannot wait to read the next book.

Grade: B+

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