Robert Jackson Bennett's Shadow of the Leviathan series has already made its place as one of the finest fantasy mystery series being written today. The third installment A Trade of Blood hit shelves on August 4th, and it is everything the series has gotten us to hope for.
I consider myself a proper fan of the Ana & Din mysteries. The Tainted Cup had me hooked the moment I found it, and A Drop of Corruption only added to my love for the series. Like a lot of readers, I was banking on an early summer release and here we are on August 4th, finally the book in hand, and the wait did nothing except make it sweeter.
Romeo, Juliet, and someone has to pay the tab
The story drops Ana and Din into Sapirdad, the agricultural heartland of the Empire. We get sprawling cattle ranches, dusty ranges and some provincial politics where old grudges have had decades to fester. Two powerful families dominate the canton: the Armentas, who control the cattle, and the Buravs, who control their feed. These families despise each other with generational intensity (hello Montagues and Capulets!).
Then there is a murder. The eldest son of the Armenta clan is found covered in the blood of the Burav heir, his secret lover, with no memory of what happened and no way to explain himself. If he hangs, war breaks out. If he doesn't, justice goes unanswered. It is the Empire's problem now and so it is Ana and Din's problem.
What looks on the surface like a star-crossed lovers tragedy with a nasty ending turns out to be something far darker. That is the signature Bennett move: the case you think you are solving is not the case you are solving. The real case is always stranger and more unsettling.
Ana and Din, still the partnership in fantasy mystery right now
If you have read the previous books, you already know about their unique partnership. Din, bioengineered for perfect photographic memory, is the eyes and ears. He does the legwork, interviews suspects and reports back. Ana, our Sherlock, is an elderly woman with a mind so relentlessly active that she blindfolds herself just to limit sensory overload. She sits with the information Din brings her and assembles the truth at a pace that never gets less unsettling to watch.
Three books in, their dynamic has settled into something warm. Din has grown more comfortable with Ana's eccentricities. Ana, in her clipped and efficient way, has begun to show that she sees something in her assistant worth cultivating. Now this volume belongs more to Din. His past comes back through an unexpected family connection, which Robert Jackson Bennett had teased during a recent sit-down with us. The family member turns out to be his sister whom he has not seen in years. As for Ana, she gets slightly less page time than usual, a trade-off some of us will notice, but her moments have their usual precision.
The worldbuilding: Bennett keeps finding new rooms
One of the things this series does that few fantasy mystery series even attempt is use its setting as such an active ingredient. The Empire is bioengineered from the foundations up. An ancient alien civilization left behind a legacy of biological technology that the Empire has learned to exploit and barely understands.
A Trade of Blood turns the horror dial up. The central threat involves a mind-altering biological weapon, a fungal technology that strips away agency while warping the body in deeply unnerving ways. It fits the world's logic and it gives the mystery this very creepy texture that also sets it apart from the previous books. Bennett is very good at that specific kind of dread.
The political geography of Sapirdad is well-rendered too. The rivalry between the two clans does not feel arbitrary. It does well to convey the economic reality in the way control over food supply is connected to imperial power. If this canton falls into war, people starve and that makes the mystery's resolution feel very urgent.
A five-star mystery
The mystery plotting is as sharp as ever. It's pretty fair-clued and layered with red herrings that earn their keep. The supporting cast in Sapirdad is varied and well-drawn, from the feuding clan patriarchs to the leader of the local Orbiis corps (agricultural bioengineering specialists and one of the more interesting world-details in the book). The pacing moves too.
The one thing that keeps you slightly hungry, and I say this as a compliment, is that the grand overarching mystery of the series, the questions about Ana and the Empire's history, continues to be rationed carefully. We get some crumbs but do not get answers yet. It is maddening in the best possible way, but three books in, you do start to wonder how far out Bennett is playing the long game. It is a reason to hope book four arrives sooner rather than later.
Verdict
A Trade of Blood is a great third installment in Bennett's beloved Shadow of the Leviathan series. By all accounts, it has deepened the world, developed the characters further, delivered a very compelling mystery and left us even more invested in where this series is heading.
If you have not started Shadow of the Leviathan yet, begin with The Tainted Cup and do not look back.
Rating: 5/5 stars
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