When Ana Dolabra and Dinios “Din” Kol are called to the heart of the empire’s cattle- and farmlands to investigate a murder, Ana anticipates that the hardest part of their job will be preventing further conflict between the two noble houses at the center of the case. After all, the case is presumably open and shut: The accused left the scene of the crime covered in the blood of his victim. Matters are soon complicated, however, as the investigators realize that the web of intrigue connecting the murders to previous deaths of local nobles is anything but figurative. An unknown mastermind has weaponized the very technology that enervates the local economy, a neuro-fungus that can condition its victims to do anything from simple tasks to murder. Anyone could be infected, including Ana and Din. And in case that wasn’t complicated enough, one of the people involved in the murders is a woman Din never expected to see again, whose presence dredges up memories he has long tried to set aside.
A Trade of Blood, the latest in Robert Jackson Bennett’s Shadow of the Leviathan series, masterfully combines an engrossing mystery, imaginative fantasy and frontier drama. As with previous entries in the series, A Trade of Blood plays heavily on the Watson-and-Holmes-inflected relationship between the eccentric Ana and her assistant, Din. While Ana often stays in the inn (or indeed, huddled in a closet or trunk), Din goes time and again into harm’s way, using his chemically enhanced eidetic memory to gather information for Ana to analyze. In their other adventures, this often meant Din and readers got to explore the more surreal parts of the empire together, staring down deadly leviathans and exploring dangerous jungles. In contrast, Bennett’s choice to set A Trade of Blood in the heart of the empire’s cattle industry might seem quotidian. However, the bloody abattoirs and generations-long land disputes serve as an uncomfortable parallel to our own factory farming system and act as a satisfyingly intriguing backdrop for a baffling mystery. Full of evocative writing and thoughtful world building, A Trade of Blood provides a window into yet another aspect of Bennett’s remarkably strange and brutal empire.