A Drop of Corruption (review)

A few months ago I read the intelligent fantasy The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett and enjoyed it. Now I have finished A Drop of corruption which is the second book in the series. The narrator is Dinios (Din) Kol. He works for Ana Dolabra. Together they are the equivalent of a police detective unit. But this takes place in a very different world than ours.

They work for the empire of Khanum. It is a powerful empire, but it is beset each year during the wet season with enormous creatures, called leviathans or titans, that wander ashore from the sea and destroy everything in their path. Or they did before gigantic sea walls were erected. These sea walls have to be maintained and armed and manned by the legion to keep the leviathans at bay. The blood of the leviathans is useful to produce drugs and augmentations to the people of Khanum that imbue them with specific powers. Some have heightened analytical abilities, some have increased sensory abilities, etc. Our narrator, Din can reproduce memories perfectly. This is a useful thing where recording technology does not exist. So Din “records” things for his boss Ana. But Leviathan blood can also produce some very dangerous results.

Ana is the most enjoyable character in the series. She is brilliant, eccentric, and snarky. Ana is the kind of character you want to spend more time with, but Bennett wisely, I think, limits our exposure to Ana. Less is more. Instead, we spend all our time with Din. We see the world through his eyes, even his sometimes exasperation with Ana (though he would never allow her to see that). At times Din thinks Ana is mad, but there is always a method to her madness. There is also a mystery about Ana’s origins. We get a few tantalizing clues about that.

The investigation centers around a man who disappears from a locked room, and whose dead body is recovered miles away. The murder happens during sensitive diplomatic negotiations. It becomes obvious that one branch of the government is keeping secrets from the others. That is just the beginning of the twists and turns that the two investigators have to navigate. But it is not so convoluted that it loses the reader.

I look forward to the next installment of Ana and Din.

Star Liner

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