Six of Crows

In Ketterdam, a port city in the same fantasy universe as Bardugo’s Grisha trilogy (starting with Shadow and Bone, rev. 7/12), thief lord Kaz Brekker is made a lucrative offer: if he can infiltrate the impregnable Fjerdan citadel and retrieve the scientist Bo Yul-Bayur, who faces a death sentence for inventing a drug that illegally intensifies magical abilities, the merchant council of Ketterdam will pay him thirty million kruge. Kaz assembles his team: Inej, an acrobatic thief; Jesper, a sharpshooter who likes to gamble; Wylan, an explosives expert; Nina, a Grisha who can render others unconscious by magically slowing their hearts; and Matthias, a Fjerdan witch-hunter familiar with the citadel. Each one with his or her own agenda—but once the heist starts, nothing goes according to plan. Beginning with a robust plot structure, Bardugo kicks up the action with dilemmas tailor-made for each of her characters, not least Kaz, who hides the trauma of his brother’s death beneath an eminently self-confident exterior. Romance, tentative and fragile, makes an appearance between several characters and is slapped down by fate; magic saves the day thanks to the strength of the outlaw drug, but at a terrible cost. From her ne plus ultra climax, Bardugo sweeps on to snatch away the happy ending (and set up the plot arc for a possible sequel)—an exciting beginning to a new sequence from a fantasy author swiftly becoming a talent to watch. anita l. burkam

In Ketterdam (in the same fantasy universe as Bardugo's Grisha trilogy), thief lord Kaz assembles a team to retrieve scientist Bo Yul-Bayur, who faces death for inventing a drug that illegally intensifies magical abilities; once the heist starts, nothing goes according to plan. Starting with a robust plot structure, Bardugo kicks up the action with dilemmas tailor-made for each of her characters.