This review is based on an eARC (Advance Reading Copy) provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. A Drop of Corruption will be released on April 1, 2025.
Though Robert Jackson Bennett isn’t exactly a new face in the fantasy scene, my first experience with his work came last year, when The Tainted Cup became one of my favorite books of the year. So it’s no surprise that I was particularly excited to get to this year’s sequel: A Drop of Corruption.
The Tainted Cup is a fantasy murder mystery in an ecologically weird world regularly threatened by massive, magical leviathans from which they derive a good chunk of their innovation. The lead is psychologically altered for perfect recall and serves as a field observer for the reclusive, neurodivergent, and absolutely brilliant investigator who employs him. It feels a bit like a Holmes and Watson dynamic, though evidently filtered through Nero Wolfe (which was previously unfamiliar to me). At any rate, The Tainted Cup captures the dynamic well, providing a gripping fantasy mystery that does justice to both the fantasy and the mystery elements—a rare feat!—and builds a wide and strange world ripe for future adventures. A Drop of Corruption takes the investigators across the map to the outside fringes of the empire in order to solve a locked room mystery in a bordering land whose industry in processing leviathan remains is vital to so much of the empire’s magical might.
Like in the first book, A Drop of Corruption can be read as a satisfying standalone murder mystery—though in this case, previous familiarity with the characters and world can’t hurt—but it develops in a way that gradually unfurls more and more pieces of the world and its politics. Some of those are directly relevant to the mystery and are explored as thoroughly as is needed to establish motive, whereas others simply reveal bits and pieces about the characters and the strange leaders they serve.
From a mystery standpoint, it’s compelling throughout. Despite a page count more at home in fantasy than mystery, it’s well-paced and difficult to put down. The locked room element of the murder provides intrigue from the start, and once the “how?” question is resolved, there’s still plenty more to do in distinguishing accomplices from bystanders and determining how exactly to capture such a clever killer. It’s easily enough mystery to sustain nearly 500 pages without the book ever beginning to drag, and the lead finds himself in enough peril to keep the tension high without the story ever devolving into a series of action sequences.
And while the mystery offers plenty of intrigue and dramatic tension, it’s clear that Robert Jackson Bennett isn’t interested in pure popcorn here. There’s a whole lot of interrogation of power, with an empire on one side and local kings on another, and while it’s clear from the Author’s Note that Bennett has been thinking a lot along pretty specific lines, it comes through in a way that’s so thoroughly folded into the main plot that it never comes across as preachy or immersion-breaking—the themes and the plot support each other wonderfully.
The dynamic between the main characters—both with preternatural abilities and struggles that go along with them—added an interesting dynamic underneath the main plot in The Tainted Cup, and given the same main cast, it should be no surprise that it returns in A Drop of Corruption. But the sequel isn’t quite as consistent in exploring the lead’s psyche, instead spending a little more time offering tidbits about the enigmatic genius he works for. There may be a wobble or two on the lead’s characterization, but any complaints here are fairly minor, and the drips of new information about his mysterious superior will be very welcome to fans of the first book.
Overall, A Drop of Corruption is exactly the sort of follow-up I wanted after The Tainted Cup was one of my favorite books of last year. The mystery is well-executed, it’s consistently exciting, and the themes and story support each other well. It’s hard for me to imagine fans of the first not loving the second.
Recommended if you like: SFF mysteries, weird ecology, The Tainted Cup.
Can I use it for Bingo? Wait until Tuesday (April 1) and find out! But it’s Published in 2025, so it’s bound to fit one of the annual squares.
Overall rating: 17 of Tar Vol’s 20. Five stars on Goodreads.