Six of Crows

Six of Crows is a heist novel that keeps its cleverest lock inside the crew.

The advertised job is impossible. The more interesting problem is persuading six people with competing loyalties to act as though they share one future. Leigh Bardugo understands that a plan is only as secure as the person who has to follow it while frightened, angry, or tempted by a better offer. I read this less for the promised haul than for the tiny shifts in who trusted whose judgment.

I also had to remind myself that these people are teenagers. They carry themselves with the weariness and professional skill of adults who have spent decades disappointing one another. That dissonance did not break the book for me, but it is the first thing I tell anyone before pressing it into their hands. The second thing is that the opening asks for a little patience. Once the crew begins to take shape, I forgot I had meant to be sensible and go to sleep.

The premise (no spoilers past Kaz assembling the crew)

In Ketterdam, a city where trade has a price for nearly everything, Kaz Brekker is offered a dangerous heist that could make him rich. He cannot do it alone. His recruits include a convict seeking revenge, a sharpshooter drawn to wagers, a runaway with a privileged past, a spy called the Wraith, and a Heartrender who uses magic to survive the slums. The undertaking may matter far beyond their own fortunes.

This is book one of Bardugo's Six of Crows duology, published in 2015 and set in the wider Grishaverse. You can come to it without first finishing Shadow and Bone. Kaz is the organiser; Inej, Jesper, Wylan, Nina, and Matthias bring different skills and histories to the job. The publisher's description promises an impossible heist. Bardugo delivers the more difficult undertaking of making a group feel like a group without smoothing away the reasons its members might fail one another.

What works

The rotating points of view do the heavy lifting. A heist needs information held in different places, and Bardugo makes perspective itself part of the suspense. One person knows how a mechanism works; another understands a particular kind of fear; someone else can read the room in which a bargain is being offered. The changes of viewpoint usually add pressure rather than merely repeat an event from another angle. I felt the plan expand and narrow as each mind touched it.

Ketterdam is a splendidly mean setting for this story. A city defined by commerce makes every act of loyalty look briefly irrational, which is precisely why loyalty matters. Bardugo does not have to stop and announce that the crew is becoming a family. She lets the price of their choices do that work. When a character spends time, safety, or advantage on someone else, the gesture registers against the city's arithmetic.

I especially like how competence is divided. Kaz may devise, but he is not a universal answer with a coat. The others are necessary, and their usefulness does not make them interchangeable. Inej's attention, Jesper's daring, Nina's knowledge, Matthias's stubbornness, and Wylan's particular talents pull the job in different directions. The ensemble's arguments matter because the plan could plausibly change under the weight of them. You can feel Bardugo checking that each person has a reason to be in the room.

The chapters end with the little forward tug that keeps a caper moving. Sometimes that means a new obstacle, sometimes a revised understanding of a person. Bardugo is particularly good at making a small disclosure alter the reader's sense of an earlier exchange. It is an efficient pleasure. I would have turned one more page at any point in the second half, which is how I ended up turning fifty.

What's polarising

The crew's ages are the book's largest stretch of credibility. These are YA leads, but their reputations, command, and accumulated damage can sound as if they have already lived two working lives. Fantasy gives its teenagers unusual pressures; it does not entirely solve the arithmetic. If you need adolescence to feel recognisably adolescent, some of the dialogue and poise may throw you out.

The opening is busy, too. Names, jobs, factions, and hints of history arrive before the emotional centre is fully visible. The delay pays off for me because the eventual pattern is satisfying, but I cannot blame a reader who pauses at the first roll call and reaches for a notebook. My rule is to keep going until you know what each person wants from Kaz. After that, the labels mostly take care of themselves.

Finally, the intricate planning sometimes depends on how delighted you are to be outmanoeuvred by the author. I enjoy the sensation, but a few turns made me think less about the characters' decisions than about Bardugo's hand moving pieces just outside my view. A caper can become a conjuring trick if every answer has been kept in the magician's sleeve. This one stays on the satisfying side of the line, though it does make you watch closely.

The crew of it

Kaz gets the title of mastermind in readers' heads, but the book is sharpest when it questions the idea of a single mastermind at all. He can set terms. He cannot determine what trust will cost another person. That distinction keeps him from becoming an all purpose fantasy of control, even when his plans are entertainingly elaborate.

Inej is particularly important to the balance. As the Wraith, she has a skill the job needs; as a person, she has a judgment Kaz cannot simply purchase. That difference gives the quieter relationship stakes its force. Nina and Matthias bring their own conflict of loyalties; Jesper and Wylan prevent the group from settling into one solemn register. I loved that the book lets humour and hurt sit together without making one excuse the other. Six capable people are not necessarily six compatible people. Thank heaven for that, or this would be a much shorter novel.

Spice and heat

Heat: 0 of 5. This is YA, the leads are teenagers, and there is no spice. The relationship threads concern longing, loyalty, old hurt, and the risks of trusting another person. The harder material is elsewhere: violence, captivity, exploitation, and a criminal world in which young people have had to become useful quickly. Readers looking for an adult romance should know that the bonds here are emotionally important but the heist is the main engine.

Who it's for

You like your fantasy with a map of conflicting motives and a plan that goes wrong in interesting ways. You want an ensemble whose members are allowed to be difficult, and you are willing to take their ages as a genre convention. You may even enjoy keeping track of who owes whom, though I advise against doing the accounts in ink.

If you need one lead, one quest, and a clean line from departure to victory, the shifting viewpoints may test you. If you enjoy seeing a promise become more dangerous each time someone chooses to keep it, Bardugo has you exactly where she wants you.

Books like Six of Crows

• Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo, for the continuation of this crew's story.
• The Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi, for another young ensemble working through an elaborate theft.
• The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch, for adult fantasy crime, sharper banter, and a gang held together by audacity.

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