A Trade of Blood

Shadow of the Leviathan #3

by Robert Jackson Bennett

An Ana and Din Mystery

Brilliant detective Ana Dolabra must prove a man's innocence to stop a civil war in the third book of the series that began with The Tainted Cup, named an Edgar, Hugo, and World Fantasy Award Finalist and one of the best books of the year (New York Times Book Review, NPR, Elle)—from the bestselling author of The Founders Trilogy.

In the canton of Sapirdad, two of the Empire’s most powerful families are moments away from going to war with each other, their hundreds of retainers gathered with swords drawn. If blood is spilt, the whole of the empire may be plunged into starvation and chaos.

To de-escalate matters, someone must do the impossible: prove that one family’s eldest son is innocent of a gruesome and unforgivable murder, despite the incontrovertible evidence against him.

It is with this undertaking that the great detective Ana Dolabra is tasked, her assistant Din at her side—and the two find themselves racing with great speed and little dignity to the scene.

As ever, the impossible proves little obstacle for the deadly combination of Ana’s intellect and Din’s keen eye, and mere hours after riding into the dusty town, Ana glimpses the greater pattern behind the crime. A deeper, subtler web of death is being woven in plain sight, by a mastermind with an ancient magical technology at his disposal.

But even Ana's uncanny insight is of little use when each new suspect she uncovers ends up dead--with each new killing calculated to bring tensions between the two rival clans past the boiling point. And as Din pursues their adversary through the canton's wild ranges, sprawling ranches, and reeking slaughterhouses, he finds his loyalties divided in unexpected ways.

Genres: Fantasy, Mystery, Fiction, Adult, Mystery Thriller, Thriller, Queer

400 pages, Hardcover

Expected publication August 11, 2026

About the author

Robert Jackson Bennett is a two-time award winner of the Shirley Jackson Award for Best Novel, an Edgar Award winner for Best Paperback Original, and is also the 2010 recipient of the Sydney J Bounds Award for Best Newcomer, and a Philip K Dick Award Citation of Excellence. City of Stairs was shortlisted for the Locus Award and the World Fantasy Award. City of Blades was a finalist for the 2015 World Fantasy, Locus, and British Fantasy Awards. His eighth novel, FOUNDRYSIDE, will be available in the US on 8/21 of 2018 and the UK on 8/23.

Reviews

[Winnie]

Would sell my soul for "Untitled"


(Edit: now I'd trade my blood for "A Trade of Blood")

[Lila]

Please, RJB, Din is not handling this heartbreak that well. To think he will handle leviathans and lampreys and posinous ticks better than this...

[Robin · Rating 5 out of 5]

dins greatest torments: family trauma, having to cart heavy musical instruments around for his boss, another biological phenomena wreaking havoc, and most notably himself

love how all of din’s love interests go: i want that melancholy lonely bisexual man, crave him actually

this was clever as hell and i will never not be craving more (pun intended)

thank you to edelweiss + del rey for providing me an advance review copy. full review to come

Bookstagram | Blog

[aria ✧]

every book in this series has been 5 stars. i can't wait for this

edit: WE HAVE A TITLE AND RELEASE DATE!! I'M SO EXCITED!!!

[megs_bookrack]

I don't need a cover.
I don't need a title.
I don't need a synopsis.

I do need this book ASAP!!!

[Valeria Andrea]

Is this truly going to be a trilogy? because 3 books suddenly don't seem like enough.

[nika.ex.libris · Rating 5 out of 5]

TYSM Del Rey and NetGalley for the ARC!

Oh, I’ve realized once again how much I missed these characters! 🤧 Can we have more, please??? It’s so hard to wait for the next books 😭

​At first, it gave me slight Romeo and Juliet vibes, two feuding families with their own secrets. But a quarter into the book, it hit me: this is The Pied Piper of Hamelin!!! It has shades of both stories, and yet the world is unique and the tale is haunting.

​I waited for this sequel for so long and recommended the series so many times that I actually started fearing I’d be disappointed. But I was hooked from beginning to end! I loved the twists and the way both the town and the main characters were fleshed out. I don't claim to be a genius, so my theories were minor (or I didn't even try), which made every reveal a total surprise.

​I love how every book is different, new location, new story, but we still have Ana with her classic: "I’m the genius here, you're all idiots, what would you even do without me?"

4,5/5⭐️

[Char]

YAY! Approved!

[Melanie (meltotheany)]

1.) The Tainted Cup ★★★★★
2.) A Drop of Corruption ★★★★★

counting the days

[lea ִֶָ☾.]

foaming at the mouth for this book

[Ashley]

my favorite cover for this series. i want to eat it.

[⋆ forest ˖]

the second this book drops i’m reading it. i’m so serious. never have i needed something this badly

DINDIN MY POOKIE 🫶

edit: THE COVER THE COVER THE COVER!!!!!!

[ellie ♈︎ · Rating 5 out of 5]

5/5 stars

Oh this series. This series. I love it so much it actually hurts to think how long I must wait for the next book. I just need RJB to write like 20 of these books, PLEASE.

In A Trade of Blood we are back with Ana and Din and their adventures in the beguiling Khanum Empire. Here, they investigate the murder of a gentry girl by her secret lover, a member of the rival cattle family. But just like every story, there is much more here than what we originally think. And Ana and Din must comb through the pieces and figure out what really happened in this blood-soaked butcher's city.

I adored the themes here, especially regarding how and what we worship from history, and how it may not be all its cracked up to be. We delve into the grisly meat farms and explore how we use animals cruelly for our own ends and comforts. Is this right or even natural? Are farms an abnormality in history, or the way humans are meant to live and survive? Such amazing questions and the exploration of them is just stunning.

As always, the characters of Din and Ana are incredible and full of complex nuances and secrets upon secrets. The layers of deceit this Empire is built on, and how it continues to use it, is fascinating. We get crumbs of answers in each book, which only serve to heighten the stakes of this world and create MORE questions that I'm now dying for answers to!

Love love love these books so much. If you haven't read The Tainted Cup do yourself a favour and read it RIGHT NOW. You're welcome.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Del Rey for an early copy! Releases 11th of August 2026!!!

[Amy Imogene Reads]

I hope this series never ends, please RJB give it to us

[literarilia]

edit 2: WE HAVE A SYNOPSIS!!!!
edit 1: WE NOW HAVE A NAME AND A DATE!!!

i visit this page every two day just to get a crumb of any new info about this book

[Lance]

@RJB and Del Rey, need this immediately pls!!!

[Ylva]

Title! Synopsis! Hazas? Kepheus Strovi?

[Ain]

i'd give up my soul to read the book now
so obsessed with this series (and i haven't been obsessed with any new series for like 2 years now, so this is huge for me)

[Crowinator]

Update 3/30/26: Approved on Edelweiss! Thank you Del Ray!

Update 1/30/26: Still stalking Edelweiss for a digital ARC...please put it up soon!

[Kaylie]

impatiently waiting for this to be released...

[Rachel]

Can we please get this book sooner rather than later??? I know this is gonna be another masterpiece & I can't wait!!!!!!

[cherry]

"...the two find themselves racing with great speed and little dignity to the scene."

din's gonna throw up again, isn't he?

[Drew McCaffrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received an ARC of this book via NetGalley.

The further we get into the SHADOW OF THE LEVIATHAN series, the more impressed I get.

Now, it's not like Robert Jackson Bennett is new to me. I read and enjoyed his FOUNDERS trilogy, and THE DIVINE CITIES is one of my favorite SFF series ever. But with Ana and Din, it feels like Bennett is doing something both more ambitious and more restrained than in either of the earlier series. The schtick is well-known at this point: it's biopunk fantasy Nero Wolfe (or Sherlock Holmes, for those readers unfamiliar with Rex Stout's classic shut-in detective).

In the tradition of detective mysteries, these books are by nature episodic. A new case arises, Din and Ana arrive on the scene and solve the case, and then they move on. There is less of an overarching plot for the stories to rest upon than in most epic fantasy—no Dark One to eventually defeat, no Iron Throne for a dozen factions to battle over, no Dominator to keep sealed away. Even in Glen Cook's GARRETT, P.I. series, which like SHADOW OF THE LEVIATHAN is directly inspired by Nero Wolfe (among other classic detectives), there is an epic war going on in the background, with the hero Glory Mooncalled taking the spotlight for most of civilization while Garrett solves mysteries.

But the closest we get to that in these books is the mystery of the leviathans and the wet seasons. Yes, humanity is fighting against something, but there's not much *direction* to that war. It's a seasonal defensive action. The empire knows so little about the leviathans. It doesn't distract from the work of Ana and Din—indeed, the leviathans are hardly even mentioned in A TRADE OF BLOOD. Across three books, we've seen precisely one leviathan.

So what does that mean? It means that Bennett is focusing the scope tightly, right? Yes and no. Even as he restrains the narrative scope, he broadens the world and the empire through subthemes. If THE TAINTED CUP is about the military frontier, and A DROP OF CORRUPTION is about imperial colonialism, A TRADE OF BLOOD is about the agricultural complex.

Bennett deftly weaves social commentary and economic insights into a story about deadly mushrooms and revenge. He treads the line between passive awareness and direct criticism even as his characters struggle with the fallout of broken sibling relationships and abusive parents. There is A LOT going on in such a slim volume, and it speaks volumes to Bennett's continually growing ability as a writer.

A TRADE OF BLOOD is relentlessly compelling, profoundly disturbing, and just mysterious enough to keep the reader guessing without becoming frustrating. It's brilliant, and perhaps the best in the series so far.

[Chantaal]

omg a shroomy cover let's gooooo

[Tabitha (Reading Tabby)]

Pre-release: Just saw there is a release date! Next summer! Keeping an eye open for this, god I love this series so much, the first two were absolute BANGERS. This fulfills my need and desire for more Dishonored, until the sparkly wish of a day arrives when we get a 3rd game lol Until then, I will take Ana and Din yearly please! I'm so glad this is a series.

[Karol]

Din: divided loyalties.
Mr. Captain Kepheus: was from a gentry family.

Can’t spell angst without delusional

[Asher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Here's a philosophical problem: when you're using bio-magic weirdness as a way of exploring real-world themes in a fantastical setting, how do you make the bio-magic feel sufficiently weird when the real-world topic it's exploring is also biologically weird, and is something that many readers have grown inured to? A Trade of Blood has some good things to say about how fucking weird modern, real-world agriculture is, but the problem is that the house-sized cows and trained bean-picking cats are not as much weirder than the real-world equivalent than previous metaphors were. Yes, they're deeply weird, and creepy, and off putting, but so is everything I have ever heard about raising cattle for beef on Earth, and yet I've gotten used to that enough that I still (though very plausibly shouldn't) eat hamburgers from time to time. It's unfortunate that this made the setting of this book feel less strange to me than the previous two novels.

The third volume in the Din and Ana Mysteries (previously the Shadow of the Leviathan books) gets out from under the leviathan-sized structures of the first two books, and I'm of two minds about that. I really appreciated getting to see more of the Empire of Khanum, and seeing how the strangeness we saw at the sea walls and under the Shroud pervades the Empire, but I did spend much of the book missing the weird megastructures that livened up the landscape of the first two books. There's a balance to be struck in the number of new things introduced at once: enough to keep things interesting and keep chipping away at the mysteries of the setting, but not too many so it still feels like the same setting as the previous books. I think this book strikes that balance pretty well, and I'm looking forward to eventually seeing the Imperial Sanctum should the series last long enough.

Part of the problem with long-running series is that the genre conventions and setting details begin to constrain the expectations of what will happen. Of course the death will have more to it than initially seen, and of course there's going to be a human behind it. I have mentioned in past reviews that these books feel a lot like a Sherlock Holmes story, but they also have an aspect of Scooby Doo to them in the way that we're trying to find the person behind the mask. That initial period of dramatic irony can be really frustrating, and to that end the speed and deftness of getting that initial investigation out of the way is a casual sign of Bennett's fundamental competence as an author. So, too, is the character development in Din, and the ways that the time jumps between books are used; the little references to the other cases they've had in the intervening time flesh out the depth of the world and the characters' lives.

If this volume is a little bit less of a romp and a little less weird than the last couple books, it's still just as solid a mystery and still just as solid a cultural commentary. Sometimes I worry that I damn good books with faint praise, so let me be very clear: this is a good book, with lively prose, funny dialogue, and compelling plotting. It's just that within another ring wall, the action is now far away from the immediate danger of the leviathans, and so we're slightly less in their shadow.

[A.C Wright]

Thank goodness this page is here, I'm about an hour away from finishing Drop of Corruption, but I couldn't just steam through to the end without knowing if there would be another. Whew!

[scrambled meggs]

[Bethany (tiny bubbles in champagne version)]

I just requested this and am praying to the ARC gods, both of its predecessors were 5 stars