An impossible crime has occurred. A Treasury officer has disappeared into thin air – abducted from his quarters in a building whose entrances and exits are all sealed.

The brilliant and mercurial investigator, Ana Dolabra, and her assistant Dinios Kol have been called in to crack the case.

Before long, Ana discovers that they’re actually investigating a murder. Worse, the adversary seems to be able to pass through warded doors like a ghost, and can predict every one of Ana’s moves as though they can see the future.

Ana’s solved impossible cases before. But this time, with the stakes higher than ever and the investigators seemingly a step behind their adversary at every turn, has Ana finally met an enemy she can’t defeat?

‘A Drop of Corruption’ (2025) is the sequel to ‘The Tainted Cup’ (2024), which won the 2025 Hugo Award for Best Novel. It was one of my favourite reads in 2025 last year. It was stunningly original, exotic, exciting, and delivered a solid mystery. 

While I’d hoped that ‘A Drop Of Corruption‘ would match its predecessor, I hadn’t really expected it to. I reasoned that its impact would be lessened because I already knew the world the story was set in, the personalities of the two investigators, and their peculiar relationship, so nothing would feel as strange or as new as it did in the first book. I’m happy to say that I was wrong. ‘A Drop Of Corruption’ was just as breathtaking as ‘The Tainted Cup’.

I promise never to underestimate Robert Jackson Bennett again.

So, how did he do it?

Firstly, he set the story in a kingdom that had, for many years, been in the process of being assimilated into the empire, and on which the empire had become dangerously dependent. The slow pace of the transition and the increasing strategic importance of what the kingdom produced created a liminal environment that was fundamentally unstable. That instabilty affected the behaviour of everyone who lived there: the senior officers of the empire who had slowly started to exceeded their authority or transgress against the expected codes of conduct; the Royal Court that was fracturing between those who resisted and those who sought to profit from the change, and the common people in whom the possiblity of becoming citizens of the empire had raised hopes and expectations that were not sustainable in a monarchy. The story was structured to allow me to see how the empire looked to those outside it, and to explore some of the most unpleasant aspects of having a King as the source of all power.

Secondly, the biochemical engineering was even stranger than in the previous book. The Shroud was an awe-inspiring creation: huge, alien and dangerous, it altered everything and everyone it touched, even the empire that had created it. The augers were fascinating, pitiable and horrifying in equal measure. Their adaptations pushed the boundaries of what a mind could be and still be considered human.  Then there was the way the Wardens had been altered, gifting them an ability to sense the world through scent more powerfully than through vision.

Thirdly, he continued to develop the personalities of the two investigators and reshape their relationship in ways that made them more engaging but also hinted at secrets still to be revealed.

Finally, he wrapped all of this around a labyrinthine, blood-soaked mystery, with a talented, ruthless, violent villain at its heart. The complexities of the plot were revealed slowly, but the tension never lessened. I admired that every twist in the plot revealed another form of corruption: sometimes banal venality, sometimes the undermining of personal ethics, and sometimes physical changes that defiled, diminished or destroyed those affected. The sense of being in the presence of abominable contamination was overpowering. 

I think ‘A Drop Of Corruption’ was another outstanding achievement. It’s shortlisted for the 2026 Hugo Best Novel award. I hope that it wins.