Review: A Drop of Corruption

A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It’s a 3.5 rounded up to a 4 for me on this second mystery of Ana and Din, those foulmouthed investigators stepping into ever fouler territory. This time, the foulness comes less from creeper plants that like to infect and kill people, and more from the generally humid jungle atmosphere of the outlying city of Yarrowdale. Despite its English-like name and the pallor and green-ness of its people, Yarrowdale reads more like a fictionalized version of Thailand or Vietnam or some other southeast Asian country, trying to stay independent despite the Empire’s wish to bring them into the fold. Especially because they happen to have the secret of all secret labs in their waters, a fallen Leviathan corpse converted into a creepy island lab known only as the Shroud. Though the moldy environs and the mystery of the Shroud play into the story pretty well, it’s much less biopunk at its core this time around, focused instead on a long and drawn out multilayer of mistaken identity - mistaken by anyone and everyone who could verify it until it’s too late. While this book is largely standalone, there’s still the promise of at least one more adventure in this series, and I’m hoping Bennett’s got all the stops to pull out on that one.

View all my reviews