A Drop of Corruption

Last year, Robert Jackson Bennett opened our eyes to a new world and a new, fantastical, Holmes-and-Watson-esque pairing. In 2025, he’s back to take Dinios Kol and Ana Dolabra to all-new corners of a lush and surprising empire as they hunt for a killer who seems to be able to accomplish the impossible.

In a world like this empire—full of people empowered by alterations made possible by the very leviathans that regularly threaten their lives—the boundaries of the possible are even more impressive than usual. So when a Treasury officer turns up dead after disappearing from a locked and guarded building, it’s just the start of a series of events that will stretch the abilities of even Din and Ana.

This series may offer a take on characters who’ve seen plenty of adaptations, but it presents an impressively original world—even our detective and her sidekick are only just recognizable as their Victorian London counterparts. The biological augmentations aren’t just window dressing; they play a major part in the mystery as well as the day-to-day lives of our protagonists. They’re explained very naturally, as are the new political and social tensions introduced with the change of scenery in this installment. At no point does it feel like we’re being info-dumped. Instead, we get to dive into a very cool, highly imaginative world, even as we’re kept on the edge of our seats by the central mystery and the investigation surrounding it.

As the best books in a series do, this builds on the first book while being entirely capable of standing on its own. It also has me very excited to see how the trilogy concludes—Robert Jackson Bennett never misses, but he’s at the absolute top of his game here.