Leigh Bardugo
An A Perceptual Shift Book Review
Six of Crows made me care about the crew. Crooked Kingdom made me think about the city that created them.
I enjoyed Six of Crows, though it took me some time to settle into Ketterdam and its unfamiliar world. In retrospect, that time mattered. Bardugo was doing more than preparing us for a heist. She was showing us what each member of the crew could do, what they wanted, and what they carried with them.
Crooked Kingdom does not need to make those introductions. It begins with people I already cared about, in a city I had come to understand.
Ketterdam is still crowded, dangerous, and driven by money. Nearly everything has a price. That makes the struggle over jurda parem especially interesting. The drug poses a frightening threat, yet the people scrambling to control its future operate in a city that already profits from crime and exploitation.
I kept wondering where Ketterdam draws the line. Is the danger of parem that it could harm people, or that its power might escape the control of those accustomed to deciding who profits?
Bardugo does not need to resolve that question for the story to work. She lets it sit beneath the schemes, bargains, and shifting loyalties. It gives the conflict a weight beyond whether Kaz and his crew can outsmart their enemies.
The fantastical elements remain one of the things I admire most about these books. The characters’ abilities feel connected to their personalities and struggles. Magic does not make their problems disappear. It gives them different ways to confront those problems, or sometimes to avoid them.
Kaz Brekker is still the most compelling example of that tension, even without magic of his own.
He seems able to anticipate everyone. He reads motives, prepares for betrayal, and maintains control when anyone else might panic. Yet he cannot plan his way out of his past. He struggles to manage his emotions, and perhaps even more, to let the people who care about him get close enough to make a difference.
He is also capable of cruelty and violence. I found myself overlooking some of his worst behavior when I believed the person on the receiving end deserved it.
That reaction stayed with me. Kaz’s actions do not become less cruel because his enemies have done terrible things. But once I was on his side, it became easier to call what he did justice.
Crooked Kingdom is very good at making the reader notice how much that judgment depends on perspective.
The rest of the crew matters just as much. Each person brings a different history, motive, and idea of what is worth risking. Their differences create friction, but they also make the group stronger. Watching them find ways to rely on one another was more satisfying to me than any single clever plan.
And the ending is remarkably satisfying.
Without giving it away, Bardugo allows powerful people to lose the control they assumed they had. The revenge is effective partly because it does not depend on simply matching one act of violence with another. It draws on everything the book has established about Ketterdam, its people, and what they value.
Six of Crows was an excellent introduction to this world. Crooked Kingdom made fuller use of it. The plot is absorbing, the crew is more interesting together than ever, and the questions beneath their victory linger after the story ends.
I highly recommend it, though I would begin with Six of Crows. The time that first book asks of you pays off here.
