A Trade of Blood is the third entry in Robert Jackson Bennett’s award-winning Sherlock Holmes inspired Shadow of the Leviathan fantasy series. The series started with The Tainted Cup which was set on the fringes of the Empire of Khanum, a world divided by walled rings, designed to protect the centre from the rampaging kaiju that come from the sea. The second book, A Drop of Corruption, was also set at the edges of the Empire, an area where the dead kaiju are processed to produce the substances that allow the Empire to manipulate nature. A Trade in Blood starts to bring investigators Ana Dolabra and Dinios Kol closer to the centre of the Empire, and is an exploration of another key aspect of Bennett’s world.
A Trade of Blood opens with a strange murder in the third ring of the Empire. The area is known for its agriculture – growing beans and producing giant livestock which feed the Empire. A young woman, Zansay Birav, has been murdered by her lover, a member of the Armenta clan, during a secret assignation. He has only a patchy memory of the crime and has no idea why he did it. But the Biravs and the Armentas are the leading landowners and producers in the area with a long-standing enmity and conflict is brewing over the death. Enter master detective Ana Dolabra and her offsider and assistant Dinios Kol who quickly find there is much more to this situation than one strange murder.
Once again Din as Ana’s Dr Watson – her eyes, ears and scribe – is at the heart of this book. Din has been enhanced to have perfect recall, although he is starting to learn of the side effects of this conditioning. On top of this, Bennett introduces some additional complications for Din (besides his desires which he cannot seem to put on hold while investigating) that impact on his investigation. But as well as digging deeper in Din’s story, Bennett provides a little more of Ana’s story, building on information hinted at in previous books.
Bennett has created a complex world with his Shadow of the Leviathan series. An Empire that runs on the powers extracted from the blood of the giant kaiju-like monsters. In A Trade of Blood Bennett considers how that Empire feeds itself, and in doing so explores more of the strange adaptations of this world – from the giant urhosi cattle, to the cat-like creatures with hands that have been conditioned using a brain fungus to harvest beans at night. This book, more than the previous two, also delves into the lives and concerns of the gentry and their jostling for power and influence. So that while this is a fantasy world it deals with very real world concerns – the manipulation of nature to feed human appetites, the profits that it generates and the damage that this can cause are very human concerns.
A Trade of Blood is another excellent instalment in a must-read fantasy series. Bennett effectively uses crime fiction tropes to explore different areas, aspects and characters of his world. In this case also delving into the history of the Empire along the way. Ana and Din’s first two mysteries were at the edges of the Empire. This case is bringing them closer to the centre and hints at more revelations to come when they get there.
A Trade of Blood by Robert Jackson Bennett
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