A Drop of Corruption is the second novel following investigators Ana and Din as they attempt to solve another crime. While Ana and Din evoke Holmes and Watson in character, these books are very much set outside of the world in which we live. Ana is essentially agoraphobic, Din is an “Engraver” who has been “modified” so that he possess perfect memory including sight, speech, smell of a situation. Din goes out in the world, absorbs experiences and stories, and brings those memories back to Ana in an attempt to solve the mystery. Set in Yarrowdale, a region of the Empire of Khanum that has remained fairly separate, Ana and Din are tasked with finding the body of a treasury official who disappeared from an inaccessible, heavily locked room.
In the canton of Yarrowdale, at the very edge of the Empire’s reach, an impossible crime has occurred. A Treasury officer has disappeared into thin air—abducted from his quarters while the door and windows remained locked from the inside, in a building whose entrances and exits are all under constant guard.
To solve the case, the Empire calls on its most brilliant and mercurial investigator, the great Ana Dolabra. At her side, as always, is her bemused assistant Dinios Kol.
Before long, Ana’s discovered that they’re not investigating a disappearance, but a murder—and that the killing was just the first chess move by an adversary who seems to be able to pass through warded doors like a ghost, and who can predict every one of Ana’s moves as though they can see the future.
Worse still, the killer seems to be targeting the high-security compound known as the Shroud. Here, the Empire’s greatest minds dissect fallen Titans to harness the volatile magic found in their blood. Should it fall, the destruction would be terrible indeed—and the Empire itself will grind to a halt, robbed of the magic that allows its wheels of power to turn.
Din has seen Ana solve impossible cases before. But this time, with the stakes higher than ever and Ana seemingly a step behind their adversary at every turn, he fears that his superior has finally met an enemy she can’t defeat.
The mystery that drives the heart of the plot… it is a delicious and delightfully layered puzzle. Tying each step and each revelation into the nature of the world itself (Yarrowdale and the Empire), fleshes out the secondary world even more. In other words, Bennett gifts readers with a deeply engaging and immersive world and story.
Something that makes Yarrow such an intriguing local is that the Shroud, a secretive lab where the blood of titans (or Leviathans) is studied for scientific and magical uses. The man who disappeared has very strong ties to the Shroud. When Din arrives to investigate, the memories and experience he brings back to Ana points to more than just a simple, yet confounding disappearance. The investigation leads to something very far-reaching, with tendrils across the Empire. This element ties back into Ana and Din’s edict…their charge as investigators… their reason for doing what they do – to ensure “an Empire worth Defending.”
The setting of Yarrow lends itself to claustrophobia in some ways. It is one of the outliers of the Empire and hasn’t fully become part of the Empire so Ana and Din are somewhat isolated. It also illustrates how diverse this world is… the Empire isn’t as all-knowing and all-powerful as the first volume made it seem to be.
Through two books, what I’ve enjoyed the most and keeps the pages turning quickly is the banter and interaction between Ana and Din… and Din himself. Bennett has carved out two enigmatic characters in his Watson/Holmes analogues and especially since the story is a first-person narrative through Din’s voice, I felt very immersed in Din. That said, I feel we’ve only been submersed about one layer deep into Din. Din has an understated nature and despite the augmentations that drive his physical nature beyond the bounds of “normal humanity” his thoughts belie a thoughtful, deliberate, and endearing human nature.
Ana is equally fascinating, if a little more frustrating but that’s by design. I enjoyed how she pushed and challenged Din. Her continual snide remarks towards him are what makes her positive engagements and words to him shine even more. She’s absolutely brilliant, framed as perhaps the sharpest intellect in the Empire and this makes the challenge of the mystery at the heart of A Drop of Corruption even more fascinating because the elusive perpetrator is a few steps ahead of Ana’s thinking.
The first installment of the series, The Tainted Cup, received both the Hugo and the World Fantasy Award. As a longtime fan of Robert’s writing, I am enormously pleased that not only did he win the awards, but he received them for such remarkable novels. A Drop of Corruption received another Hugo Award nomination and I wouldn’t be surprised if he got the award because I may have enjoyed the second installment even more than the first.
Highly, highly recommended.
© 2026 Rob H. Bedford
Trade Paperback | Del Rey Books
January 2026 (Hardcover April 2025) | 480 Pages
https://www.robertjacksonbennett.com/
Excerpt: https://reactormag.com/excerpts-a-drop-of-corruption-by-robert-jackson-bennett/
Review copy courtesy of the publisher
