A Drop of Corruption, by Robert Jackson Bennett

Dinios Kol and Ana Dolabra return in A Drop of Corruption, by Robert Jackson Bennett, to solve another impossible mystery. I had a great time with the series opener, The Tainted Cup, but I think this book is even better. This book marries classic locked room mystery to highly inventive fantasy and I loved every page.

Din and Ana have been dispatched to the sweltering, muggy, decaying kingdom of Yarrow, on the edges of the Empire, to find out what happened to a missing Treasury agent. Their only clues are parts of the agent (turtles might have eaten the rest), a splotch of blood on the agent’s pillow in his locked room, and a few witnesses who remembered that the agent twitched his fingers when he talked. It’s not a lot to go on but, with Din serving as her eyes and ears, Ana starts to piece things together. Before long, our protagonists are up to their eyeballs in conspiracy, deception, and villains who are dangerous because they very much believe they’re acting for the greater good.

Throughout the mystery, Din struggles with his assignment. He wishes he could be doing something more concrete, a job where he feels like he’s actually making a difference. Digging into sensitive cases that are hushed up as soon as the guilty are identified, over and over, is far from satisfying. In The Tainted Cup, Din was assigned to work with Ana Dolabra because her eccentricities chased away all her other assistants. He’s only a member of the Iudex because it offers a way to pay off his father’s crushing debt; he’s not called to serve justice the way Ana is. At least, he thinks he isn’t. Over the course of the novel, the corruption and injustice all around him get under Din’s skin.

In addition to the fascinatingly layered mystery and the beautiful character development in A Drop of Corruption, Bennett also gives us a rich setting that is so real that I swore I could smell Yarrow’s jungle every now and then. I adore the original magical science of Bennett’s empire, where plants are bred and trained to create massive buildings and humans can be altered to enhance the senses or memory or strength. Bennett drops just enough exposition to provide a sense of the long history of Yarrow and the Empire. Unlike a lot of fantasy I’ve read, this world actually feels lived in.

I am very curious to see what Bennett cooks up for Din in the next entry in the series.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, for review consideration.