I enjoyed both of these books, especially Crooked Kingdom, though I didn’t think they were a drastic improvement over the Shadow and Bone trilogy, which surprised me a bit since so many people seem to prefer this duology. I think they’re almost equally good, with the duology slightly edging out the trilogy.
In Six of Crows, we meet Kaz Brekker, who essentially runs a crew called the Dregs. He gets the opportunity of a lifetime when Jan Van Eck offers a lot of money for Kaz to retrieve a prisoner from the country of Fjerda. Kaz assembles his crew of Inej, Nina (a Grisha), Jesper, Matthias, and Wylan. All of these characters are part of the Dregs, except for Matthias. He is Fjerdan and has to be broken out of prison for this job, and he and Nina have some history. And Wylan is also Van Eck’s son, so he is meant to be insurance in case Van Eck tries to go back on his word.
This is a really high stakes heist for a couple of reasons. First of all, they have to retrieve the prisoner from the Ice Court, which is expected to be impossible. Second, the prisoner is the developer of a drug called jurda parem, which significantly multiplies Grisha abilities but also produces instance addiction to the drug when a Grisha takes it, and this could have devastating effects on the world.
Bardugo does an excellent job of making readers care about a group of morally gray characters (especially/mainly Kaz). You’re always rooting for them, both because the stakes are high and because you just like them. I particularly enjoyed the dynamic between Matthias and Nina. I always like a romance, and in this case I loved how they overcame their past history and Matthias’s prejudices against Grisha. I’m also a sucker for enemies to lovers, apparently.
Crooked Kingdom picks up almost immediately after Six of Crows. The crew is in hiding while plotting how to get Inej back and then get revenge on Van Eck. The plotting gets pretty complicated, especially after the crew seems to get backed into a corner. Meanwhile, everyone is looking for Kuwei because they want the secret to jurda parem, and some Shu Grisha hunters have descended on Ketterdam, making life more dangerous for Nina and Jesper.
I loved the characters even more in Crooked Kingdom. The first book had growing pains as you get to know the characters and they get to know each other, but now we have a solid foundation of who they are and how they work together. I cared more about them, which is probably why I preferred this book to the first one. These already complex characters continue to evolve, and we learn more about their ambitions and motivations. There was also a part that made me tear up, and I rarely cry when reading. We get the return of a couple of familiar faces from the Shadow and Bone trilogy in this one, too.
I also loved how much these books reminded me at times of the TV show Leverage. Maybe most heist books are like that, and I just wouldn’t know since I don’t think I’ve read a heist novel before, but it was just so much fun to see the plans and backup plans and how it all comes together at the end. Ultimately I rated these books 3.5 and 4 stars. I’m looking forward to eventually getting around to the King of Scars duology so I can hopefully learn more about how all of these characters are doing – and spend time with one of my favorite characters (Nikolai).
CBR 16 Bingo: Part 1 for Six of Crows and Rage for Crooked Kingdom (a lot of character motivations stem from anger towards Pekka Rollins and Van Eck).