Please note this review contains spoilers for the former book in this series, The Tainted Cup and A Drop of Corruption, and contains references to some of the events in this sequel. Read with caution.
Far beyond the boundaries of the sea and the ever constant threat of Leviathans lies the canton of Sapirdad. Responsible for feeding the wealth of the empire, it has become the setting for a brutal slaying. An heir to one of its leading families has just been murdered, gruesomely slain by the son of their family’s greatest rival. As the presumed killer insists upon his innocence in committing the crime, all out bloodshed between two rival families appears inevitable. Hoping cooler heads prevail but wishing to prevent further violence, a group is dispatched to investigate the scene: Detective Ana Dolabra and her assistant Dinios Kol. Arriving at the Canton in the midst of upheaval, they soon discover that the suspect is indeed innocent of the crime, guilty of nothing but being handed the butcher’s weapon. Someone hides behind the scenes playing the puppet master, controlling the actions of others through means unheard of in the human populace. Discovering how this web was expanded into the canton is up to Din and Ana who must grasp at all the facts as more murders bloom. The answers lie in the fraught past of the canton—one all too familiar with unexplainable deaths and bloodshed. In a canton built upon blood and suffering it is these unexplained killings that could spell its end, and upheaval for the entire empire.
A canton of blood grapples with buckets of it in Robert Jackson Bennett’s latest fantasy mystery medley, A Trade of Blood. Inspector duo Ana Dolabra and her chronically exhausted and disastrous assistant Dinios Kol are back for a third installment in the genre spanning, far too addictive Shadow of the Leviathan series. Another case with far reaching implications to plague main character Dinios Kol and rewrite our existing understanding of the Khanum empire. It all starts with an impossible murder (and doesn’t it always): a locked room where two lovers meet, one of whom murders the other with no true memory of having committed the act. This is where Bennett thrives, in the boundaries of the improbable which he utilizes to build out his greater exploration into the cattle industry and the systems put in place to uphold an empire’s insatiable hungers. Aforementioned disaster character Din stands at the forefront of this investigation, facing new challenges. Din’s greatest torments in A Trade of Blood include: family trauma, having to cart heavy musical instruments around for his boss, another biological phenomenon wreaking havoc, and most notably himself. For Bennett’s A Trade of Blood it all comes down to hunger and the lengths one will go to see them realized. Din and Ana will have to face the web winding beneath the canton of Sapirdad and the past violences which bleed eternally into its present.
A Trade of Blood brings a new side to the empire of Khanum, one where the blood spilled is immeasurable and more than one family has succumbed to the overwhelming allure of power. It’s up to our favorite investigators to view the gruesome scene and turn the tide in a canton of blood and intense rivalry. Across the Shadow of the Leviathan series, Robert Jackson Bennett has interrogated the unique facets of the Khanum empire and the people living within its bounds. In A Trade of Blood he turns his attentions to the livestock industry and its foundations set deep within the land. This installment is all about hunger, the appetites whetted and never satiated, and those fed eternally all for the sake of desire. The cattle industry is one of wealth and of slaughter, a carrion feed for two rival families—the vultures—to scrap over. Yet Bennett understands it is human nature upholding this industry, a specific craving that birthed its existence—one that forever sustains it. As always there is the undercurrent of magic to this world, the augmented and the biological transformations in the wake of leviathans still very much in play. Bennett brings us into the fold of the Orbiis, those enhanced to maintain the empire’s agriculture, as he builds out his central mystery. Between the family rivals, forgotten history, puppetry, and blood this third novel shapes a monumental look upon hunger and the price of wielding the blade in service of vicious appetites.
A Trade of Blood furthers an ongoing inquiry into personhood and the systems of power which strain all that we are. Din bears the brunt of this and it is through him that Bennett’s greater plot is realized. If A Drop of Corruption centered upon Din’s exhaustion with the work of uprooting a seemingly never ending corruption, then this book was about Din finding a work life balance that he desperately needed. Thrilled for him actually. This third installment sees Din and Ana at their strongest. Don’t get me wrong, Dinios is still confronting the demons of this empire with a strong “why me” energy, but albeit with a smidgeon of less cynicism. In A Trade of Blood Bennett does a tremendous job in disentangling the human cost of industry and of empire. Just as the victims of the guiding web are lulled into a dream where they commit horrific acts, Din hears voices of his own—the beginnings of the true cost of his gift: his life. A Trade of Blood is certainly concerned with the blood spilled within this canton, but on a far greater level how we trade our lives to industry and what we give up to gain a foothold, a semblance of power within it. For the livestock industry is not one of necessity, but of craving, and calls for a human offering. In the canton which upholds the foundations of this industry, one is merely a good to be swallowed up within the yawn of the empire, furthering its own ends.
Robert Jackson Bennett drives the nail ever deeper in A Trade of Blood, a third installment rife with blood—yes, but hunger, rivalry, and above all, power. In his third Shadow of the Leviathan novel, Bennett further demonstrates that he has grounded this world in the fabric of our present, an ever haunting cloak cast upon the empire of Khanum. The canton of Sapirdad is an apt resting place for Khanum’s past, one it will do anything to keep from the light, but it is the cattle industry that becomes a larger testament to its history and the bloodshed seeping through its pores. Bennett cleverly sharpens his knife from the start, setting his stage with two families at odds and Dinios Kol and Ana Dolabra on the case of a bloody crime. The case is no mere revenge killing however, and unveils a pain that lies much deeper—literally—as the tool used against the laborers of the past festers deep within the land, never slumbering. What I love so much about these mysteries is Bennett’s hold on his themes and the nuance in displaying the various facets unreservedly. Mark this as another appreciation for authors’ notes because Bennett’s afterword offers a wealth of insight into his findings and the basis for much of this novel. Unparalleled and certainly without rival (of the unbloody kind), A Trade of Blood belongs within its own realm of fantasy excellence. I will always be craving more from Bennett. Wit, improbable murders, and humorous repartee between a disaster bisexual and his employer who spends most of her time willingly confined in a closet. In that exact order.
Thank you to Edelweiss and the publisher for providing me with am advance review copy.
Trigger warnings: death, blood, murder, suicide, body horror
Literaryrobin 