A Drop of Corruption (Shadow of the Leviathan #2) by Robert Jackson Bennett

A wicked clever immensely fun sequel that ups the ante further on a remarkably fun and imaginative series

I am thankful to Netgalley, Random House Publishing Group, and the author for this review copy - below are my honest thoughts on the same

The Tainted Cup hit my shelves in Feb 2024 and immediately cemented its place as one of the books of 2024, a position it never relinquished despite other impressive contenders throughout the year. Naturally, the hype and expectation for A Drop of Corruption was sky-high. I am happy to say A Drop of Corruption is even better - a wicked, razor-sharp book that is a crackling locked room mystery on the surface, hiding a deeper conspiracy encompassing the strains of belonging to an Empire at its very core.

“Vice & bribery will never be totally banished from the cantons. And the drop of corruption that lies within every society shall always persist”

This time around, the eccentric and brilliant investigator Ana Dolabra and her assistant, the engraver Dinios Kol are sent to Yarrowdale, a canton at the very edge of the Empire to investigate an impossible crime - the disappearance of a Treasury officer into thin air from a locked room. Yarrowdale is a critical component of the Empire, a kingdom that signed a 100-year succession to the Empire (whose time is nearing now) and also houses the Shroud, a mysterious deadly island that serves as a high-security research facility enabling the Empire to harness the deadly magic of fallen Leviathans. Yarrow is an incredibly strategic asset to the Empire while still not being part of the Empire and there are rumblings of discontent even as the powers negotiate on what belonging to the Empire actually means. That is the simmering powder keg that Ana and Dinios find themselves enmeshed in. Complicating matters is the presence of an antagonist who is a match to Ana and is always a few steps ahead (in some cases, a few years)

“Little men with muddy, ugly little mind, who fall to common corruptions just like anyone”

Make no mistake, this is a book that starts off running and doesn’t slow down at all. While the murder mystery gets solved pretty quickly, it is just the tip of the iceberg. The book is pretty much unputdownable even as examining the motives of that missing officer throws light on the history of the Empire, its complicated relationship with the ruling classes of Yarrow, and what the Shroud actually represents. Secret, many of them classified, find their way into the light even as Ana takes it on herself to unravel this piece by piece with increasingly unhinged wicked delight

“You’ve all the prudence of an inebriated cow!”

Quentin Tarantino has this style wherein you know that the violence is about to erupt but he keeps dragging that moment, building the tension and the hype exquisitely until you can’t stand it anymore. Robert Bennett does something similar with Ana. Unhinged Wicked Chaotic Delight is what Ana unleashes and it is best served in small doses to maximum effect. Any moment that she is on screen, it is an absolute hoot - not because she is funny (she is) but because she is a proper agent of chaos. Delighting in unraveling expected decorum and conventions, and keeping people perpetually on the balance, Ana steals the show. When we first meet Ana, we are almost 10% into the book - he makes us wait and wait and her entrance is worth the hype. In the absence of Ana, Dinios Kol is our narrator of this world & while he does remain as bemused with Ana as he did in the first book, he has gotten used to her eccentricities a fair bit. He gets his own journey of sorts as he is conflicted about his duty and the manner of serving the Empire - his arc is a good one through the book even if it pales into significance next to Ana’s history and her role in all of this. But he is the beating heart of this story

“These giant, inexplicable things, thundering ashore, bringing so much death and strangeness with them. That’s what faith and the divine is, isn’t it? A line stretching from little beings like us, to the ineffable, the incomprehensible”

The author titled this series, The Shadow of the Leviathan, and each book has essentially done tremendous justice to the title. Everything that the Empire is all about has been because of the Leviathans and even (maybe especially)in death, these Leviathans continue to shape the narrative and the future of the Empire. While we don’t see them in this book, the Leviathan’s presence is always felt. The world-building from that standpoint feels very dense and lived in and bringing together Yarrowdale and Shroud lends to the denseness of it all. The enhancements and augmentations that the Empire works on due to the Leviathans are further explored here as we come across newer innovations. While it still doesn’t hold a patch to the tree exploding from a man’s torso as it did in the first book, there are still some amazingly etched sequences here as well. The author has painted a beautiful wonderful world but these books are concerned with the dirty happenings of the Empire down to its brass tacks - the dichotomy of that is what makes this series work. On the surface, the mystery and conspiracy can potentially find their place in any book or any world but juxtaposing them with this richly imagined world truly makes this series a very special one and one full of surprises that can spring anytime

“Why, it’s the….. the crushing disappointment of it all. The investigation ends. It’s all over now. No more riddles, no more need for imagination. And all was so small, at the end.”

There is a lot to love and genuinely nothing to complain about. I did recently learn that this was going to be a trilogy and so that is something I can complain about - There is just so much more I want to know about this world and so many more mysteries to uncover with Ana. Wicked, Imaginative, Chaotic, Unputdownable, and a lot of fun, A Drop of Corruption has rocketed up to the best book of 2025 already

Rating - 5 Leviathans on 5