A Drop of Corruption is the second in Robert Jackson Bennett’s Sherlock Holmes-inspired fantasy series Shadows of the Leviathan. The first book – The Tainted Cup – introduced readers to engraver Dinios Kol, a man altered so that he has a perfect memory, and his savant boss Ana Dolabra, who wears a blindfold to limit the amount of sensory information she has to process. That book introduced their imperial world, threatened by giant monsters that come from the sea (the Leviathans) but whose blood and viscera underpin a complex biological system of enhancements.
While readers last saw Din and Ana they were heading towards the imperial centre. But A Drop of Corruption finds them beyond the edge of the Empire. Yarrowdale is important as a processing centre for leviathan bodies and so has a thriving imperial outpost, but is not yet officially part of the Empire. Din and Ana have been sent to solve the mystery of a missing Treasury official, who disappeared from a guarded, second floor locked room with locked windows leaving only a pool of blood. The solution of this mystery opens up further mysteries as the pair find themselves trying to outwit someone possibly cleverer than Ana.
If the homages to the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in the first book in this series was not sufficient, Bennett provides even more direct lifts and allusions to those stories in the follow up. From his mechanical solution to the locked room mystery, to an adversary reminiscent of Moriarty, to the use of disguise and misdirection. But this is all in service of illuminating his fantasy world and many of the solutions still hinge on the protagonist’s (and reader’s) understanding of the rules of that world.
Putting the Doctor Watson comparisons aside, Dinios Kol is a great guide to this world. Unhappy with his lot in life, saddled with debts accrued by his father, looking to find solace in physical contact, but also handy with a sword and an intuitive investigator in his own right. Din’s personal arc is in understanding the purpose of a functioning justice system to the continued health of the Empire. And it is in this facet – the exploration of power and influence and corruption, that this series transcends its setting and genre trappings.
In A Drop of Corruption Bennett once again uses tried and tested crime fiction tropes to dig deep into interesting aspects of the world that he has created. In the two books so far he has kept his main characters on the periphery of the Empire. Given how much more of this world there is to explore and the flexibility of this approach, more adventures of Din and Ana are assured and will be welcome.
A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett
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