A Drop of Corruption

I didn't finish it at 100 pages. I quite enjoyed the first book but this one felt strange, the protagonist (Din) turned into a promiscuous, bitter young man whose sexual exploits didn't interest me in the slightest. It was like I was reading about someone else. The case and the setting were interesting enough but couldn't save it, it felt kinda repetitive to be honest. All in all, it was an uncomfortable read for me.

I sometimes wonder why I read SF&F, why I need a speculative element in my, drama, comedy, thriller or cozy?

I think it is because they add a sence of mystery and wonder, learning about a different world with different constraints and seeing how our world is reflected within it's different facets.

A Drop of Corruption excels because it is not only another Dolabra & Kol murder mystery, but because of what we learn about the intricacies of leviathan science, the empire's past and future, it's relationship to an outlying kingdom and the people it grinds in its gears.

The murder mystery is part and parcel of a complex strange world.

It is also an excellent page turner. .

A Drop of Corruption was a great followup to The Tainted Cup.

I love the universe, it's so delightfully weird and mysterious. Additionally, I appreciate that Din, despite being A Watson, actually does the majority of solving things and unraveling the story, instead of just floundering around until his Holmes solves everything.

This book reminds me a lot of the second book in Robert Jackson Bennett's Divine Cities trilogy. Both are set out in the hinterlands, with a different focus and locale than the first book, but crucially both are there to establish the thematic question for the series. Here, that question is around the human nature of kings and emperors, and the complicated human desire for them.

Unsurprisingly, this series continues to be solidly in the mystery genre despite being blended with kaiju fantasy worldbuilding. It opens with a locked room murder mystery (and a missing body), has a brilliant Moriarity-adjacent mastermind, and ends with a dramatic reveal. This was true in the first book as well, but I quite appreciate how the details and clues are meticulously laid out for the reader to spot; even when there is a "our investigator must go into a fugue state to find answers" moment, her revelations are all something the reader could have intuited themselves.

One friend who has been reading this series (and crucially has not read any mystery books) has been disappointed at the "small-ness" of the plot threads, where the climax is a mystery rather than a fantasy escalation, and the terror of the leviathans only looms in the distance. These books certainly do not have the escalation of ideas from his previous series The Founders Trilogy. However, following the Divine Cities example above, my prediction is that the final book is going to satisfyingly tie together the themes from the first two books while answering our questions about the nature of the leviathans and the silent Khanum emperor.

I enjoyed the incredible world-building of The Tainted Cup and I was vaguely worried that the sequel would mostly want to roll around in the world as described rather than giving us more. My concerns could not have been more misplaced. A Drop of Corruption effortlessly recaptures the creativity of the first novel and manages to advance all three of (what I think of as) the main threads while seamlessly pulling off another mystery which is candidly more creative than most of Doyle's work.

The key elements I see progressing here are (1) our macro understanding of the world: this bioengineered Roman-æsthetic empire, how it works, how it got this way, and what surrounds it; (2) the relationship between Dolabra (Holmes) and Kol (Watson); and (3) Dolabra's schemes, larger identity, and role within the empire. Beautifully, A Drop of Corruption lets us explore all three!

The story locates us on the edge of the empire where an independent polity is negotiating its accession into the empire, with all the legal and logistical complexity that entails. We see this outside region — Yarrowdale, which has something of a high fantasy vibe — through the lens of an imperial perspective, allowing Bennet to articulate nuances about the world through the juxtaposition of the two societies. This locality is also home to a major imperial bioengineering lab, working with the dangerous but valuable biology of the Kaiju around which the entire empire is organized. This naturally creates the opportunity to learn more about this apparently-secretive imperial branch layered as the investigation demands more access to their secrets and projects.

The crime/plot/mystery they're sent to unravel is delightfully centered on this power triangle between the empire, Yarrowdale, and the imperial bioengineering corps, and gives us an adversary very precisely tuned to be an interesting challenge for Dolabra, while creating exciting set-pieces for us to enjoy along the way. I think the pacing was perfect and the payoff was satisfying. Overall, another excellent installment which leaves me eager for the next one.

I loved the first one - this one only slightly disappointed but was still a great read. Ana and Din are great characters, and there's some good development and interactions between them here.

Introduced a potential (and relatively inevitable) Moriarty type character which escalated the stakes. The worldbuilding continues to be stellar - just the right mix of fantasy anchored in familiar concepts.

The mystery of this book was a little disappointing, but it was made up for by the series level plot advancements.

It felt smaller scale and more contained than the first book, and I kept waiting for it to kick up a gear and unfortunately it didn't, really. Still - great - and I look forward to the next.