A Trade of Blood (2026) is the third installment in Robert Jackson Bennett’s Ana and Din Mysteries, also known as the Shadow of the Leviathan series, following The Tainted Cup (2024) and A Drop of Corruption (2025). All three novels are set in the Khanum Empire, a bioengineered civilization built to withstand attacks from massive amphibious Titans that periodically breach its coastal walls. The books follow investigator Ana Dolabra, a brilliant detective whose powers of analysis and perception are so great that she wears a blindfold to avoid being overwhelmed by information from the world around her, and her assistant Dinios Kol, called an “engraver” because his biologically enhanced memory allows him to recall whatever he witnesses in precise detail. Each novel sends the pair to investigate a politically sensitive crime in a different corner of the Empire, using the case to reveal another facet of its bioengineered society.

Where the first two novels kept Ana and Din near the coast, close to the Titan threat, A Trade of Blood relocates them to Sapirdad, the Empire’s agricultural interior, shifting the series’ focus from monster attacks to the moral and ecological cost of feeding an empire, including forced labor tied to food production. The novel also introduces Din’s sister Fotia Kol, who has been absent for years, adding a personal thread to his backstory that earlier books left unexplored.

Although each Ana and Din mystery is self-contained and can be read on its own, since the central case in each book is unconnected to the others, following the series in order lets readers track how the Empire’s setting and Din’s personal history are built up gradually, adding weight to the developments introduced in this novel.