This review is based on an eARC (Advance Reading Copy) provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. A Trade of Blood was released on August 4, 2026.

For much of the summer, I’ve been struggling to find long reads that truly captured my attention. With air travel ahead, I was looking for a story to lose myself in, and after my responses to the first two Shadows of the Leviathan novels, A Trade of Blood by Robert Jackson Bennett seemed a likely candidate. And it was. 

A Trade of Blood is the third entry in a mystery series set in a fantasy world where much of the technological development comes through experiments with the blood of the eldritch Leviathans. While the main characters (the reclusive genius Ana and her eyes on the ground Din) stay the same from book to book, and each entry fleshes out a little bit more of the world, the mysteries themselves are self-contained and could plausibly be read in any order. After one book set along the sea walls and another in the marshy outskirts of the empire, the third moves inland to the hub of the (magical) beef industry, where the heir to one of the wealthiest houses has murdered the daughter of another. Despite Ana’s initial insistence that the apparent lover’s quarrel is bound to be mind-numbingly mundane, the circumstances surrounding the murder quickly unveil the sort of intrigue that will put their full skills to use. 

There’s not a whole lot to say about this one that is going to feel particularly new. People who liked the first two books will surely like this one. People who didn’t surely will not. I might recommend that those on the fence start instead with The Tainted Cup, which spends more time introducing the universe and the characters, but A Trade of Blood is also a perfectly reasonable entry point. It’s pretty grotesque—there are quite deliberate parallels to the butchery of cattle, and there’s more than a bit of fungus for good measure—but it’s a compelling mystery that quickly hooks the reader and introduces new questions as the story progresses. And for those who felt that A Drop of Corruption introduced a little bit of bloat, A Trade of Blood returns to the length of The Tainted Cup, about 15% shorter than the second entry. 

Ana and Din continue to play to type as the eccentric genius and down-to-earth investigator, with the latter getting a little more family backstory here in the series’ third entry. I sometimes found Ana’s speech jarring, as almost every sentence includes italics or ends with an exclamation mark, but it’s hard to argue that it doesn’t fit with her character as established. 

I have seen complaints in past books that the author’s thematic concerns don’t come through as clearly as he might hope, but I’d be surprised to see those complaints continue here. A Trade of Blood has plenty to say on the agricultural industry in general, but factory farms seem a particularly clear target, and the critiques come through loud and clear. 

In keeping with my own tastes as a reader, I prefer the piecing together of the oddities more than the more action-heavy attempts to actually bring the killer into custody. But both elements are worked well enough, and my reactions probably say more about me than the book. Ultimately, the quality is very much in keeping with the previous two entries. There’s a real argument to be made that A Trade of Blood is the best yet, but either way, it’s very close. If you’re a fan of the series, you’ll like this one. 

Recommended if you like: weird fantasy worlds, fantasy mysteries, fungus fiction.

Can I use it for Bingo? It’s a Murder Mystery that’s Published in 2026 and includes Feasting Your Eyes.

Overall rating: 17 of Tar Vol’s 20. Five stars on Goodreads.