Last time in “Six of Crows” by Leigh Bardugo, Kaz Brekker’s crew had just made it into the ice court as their plan was quickly unfolding.

The crew had just made it out of their prison cells and were making their way to the roof of the prison through the incinerator shaft when Nina set off an alarm.

This is when the crew split up to complete their individual parts of the mission to rescue Bo Yul-Bayer.

Nina and Inej switched places with two women working for a brothel at the party currently taking place in the ice court. This would allow them to converse with members of the Ice Court to gain information on Bo Yul-Bayer’s location.

Nina made it inside the place with her disguise, but Inej was stopped at the gates and detained because her costume was suspicious in the eyes of the guards.

At the same time, Kaz and Matthias disguised themselves as guards of the ice court and snuck across a secret bridge Matthias used to use when he was still a member of the ice court. 

This bridge granted them access to the palace and into the party where they could follow Nina and help get Yul-Bayer out once they found him.

Lastly, Jesper and Wylan snuck into the weapons hold where they were meant to trigger the highest alarm as a distraction to help the crew escape the ice court with Yul-Bayer in tow. 

Once at the party, Nina caught the attention of the highest-ranking officer. She tricked him into showing her the Grisha the ice court held captive. Matthias followed them, and after Nina learned of Yul-Bayer’s location, the pair threw the officer into an empty cell, locking him in.

They found where Yul-Bayer was being kept only to learn he was dead and his son was there instead, trying to replicate the drug Yul-Bayer was wanted for. 

Nina and Matthias took the boy, known as Kuwei, blew up the lab he was working in and went to meet Kaz where they escaped by jumping through a hole leading to a river that let out into a bay.

Inej, after being detained, was brought back towards the prison where the guards holding her were taken out by Jesper and Wylan. The three of them then stole a tank, blew a hole into the wall surrounding the ice court and made their escape.

The crew met up and rode the tank toward the harbor with Kuwei in tow where they were met with an ambush of ice court soldiers.

Thinking on her feet, Nina took the dangerous drug Yul-Bayer and Kuwei were wanted for which could cause her deadly withdrawal symptoms. The drug allowed her to use her power as a heartrender to put the entire army to sleep so they could easily make their escape into their boat.

Once back into their home city with Nina suffering major withdrawals from the drug, the rest of the crew met with the man who hired Kaz to do this job to complete their deal and exchange Kuwei for the $30 million.

However, the man didn’t hold up his end of the deal and ambushed Kaz’s crew. Luckily, Nina had disguised Wylan as Kuwei which prevented the man from killing any of the crew members.

Instead, the man had one of his indentured Grisha kidnap Inej. The book ended there and created the perfect lead into the next and final book of the series.

Reading this book had me on the edge of my seat nearly the entire time. The whole thing was action-packed while still allowing time to get to know the characters which I loved.

I thought that the world-building in this book was really well-done and unique which added to my interest in the book. The writing style was also very easy to follow and made the whole experience of this book one to remember.

Overall, I would really recommend this book to anyone interested in fantasy stories. 

Join me next week as I open a new chapter of “book club” with a new book to read and review.

Smith can be reached at [email protected].