Crooked Kingdom

In the prologue, a Grisha man named Emil Retvenko is kidnapped by a winged Shu man.

The book commences in a gambling parlor known as Club Cumulus where Jesper and Nina keep Jan Van Eck's lawyer, Cornelis Smeet, busy while Kaz and Wylan search his office for Jan Van Eck's property information. After they find what they need, Kaz plans to kidnap Van Eck’s pregnant young wife, Alys, and trade her for Inej, who is being held captive and is nearly tortured. Meanwhile, Jesper’s father, Colm, arrives at the city to meet him, as the bank is pushing the deadline for the debt Jesper owes. When Jesper goes to meet with his father, they are attacked but manage to escape. Kaz tells Jesper's father to give them three days to get the money and asks him to wait in a fancy hotel in the city.

Afterward, the crew's kidnapping is successful, and they trade Van Eck's wife for Inej. However, during the trade, three Shu soldiers with superhuman abilities attack Nina, Jesper, and other Grisha in the surrounding area. They all manage to get away after Nina shoots one of them point-blank in the eye, and Wylan sets another on fire. The crew meets at their hideout, and Kaz reveals his plan to sabotage Van Eck’s sugar silos using a chemical weevil (cleverly nicknamed the Wyvil by Jesper). Doing so will raise the price of sugar, and Kaz had already bought shares in other sugar companies. Nina and Inej persuade Kaz to smuggle out the remaining Grisha in the city using one of Van Eck’s own ships.

While Kaz and Wylan attempt to steal the seal they need from the Van Eck house, Nina and Inej infiltrate the sugar silos. However, all of them are attacked, and it is revealed that Pekka Rollins is in league with Van Eck. Pekka also attacks the hideout Kaz was using to hide Kuwei, where Jesper and Matthias were guarding him. They all escape and meet at the hotel where Jesper's father is staying in. Nina shows the group her strange and eerie new abilities to control dead bodies, herself, Wylan, and Kuwei collectively guessing that it might be a result of her surviving the jurda parem withdrawal. Kaz puts together another plan and declares an auction for the indenture of Kuwei, which causes everyone to think him more insane than usual.

In the auction, Kaz disguises the Grisha from the embassy as the Council of Tides. They claim that the auction is biased because Van Eck gave money to the Shu people. The money was, in fact, channeled to the Crows themselves by scamming the Merchant Council. Van Eck is arrested. They manage to fake Kuwei's death and smuggle him out. Amidst the job, Matthias is shot, and later he dies. Kaz bluffs Pekka into believing that he has his son buried alive. He then leaves the city in search for his son. With Van Eck gone, Wylan inherits the properties of his family.

In the end, Kaz finds Inej's parents, is threatened by the real Council of Tides, and Inej threatens Pekka out of his business.

• Kaz Brekker, a master thief and lock pick with a reputation for doing anything for the right price. He is also known as Dirtyhands. He is described as always wearing black leather gloves and carrying a cane with a crow's head on it. He is a leader of the Dregs.
• Inej Ghafa, a Suli acrobat who has a talent for sneaking around. She was kidnapped and forced to work in a brothel known as the "Menagerie" until Kaz bought her contract. She is also known as the Wraith.
• Wylan van Eck, a merchant's son with some talent for demolition, who Kaz takes on as a hostage in hopes of using him as leverage against Jan Van Eck. He is unable to read due to severe dyslexia.
• Matthias Helvar, a former Drüskelle (witchhunter from Fjerda). He has a history with Nina, as the two of them helped each other after a storm destroyed their ship. They trusted each other, until Nina accused him of being a slaver, leading to his incarceration at Hellgate. He hates Nina for her betrayal and for his initial prejudice against Grisha, but he also loves her. Kaz frees Matthias from Hellgate Prison in Six of Crows because of his knowledge of the Ice Court as well as for his skills as a soldier.
• Nina Zenik, a powerful Heartrender who worked in a brothel named "White Rose". She was a soldier of the Ravkan Second Army who was captured by Fjerdan Drüskelle, leading to her first encounter with Matthias. She betrayed his trust to protect him from Grisha spies, choosing to stay in Ketterdam in the hopes of finding a way to free him from prison. She was initially recruited by Pekka Rollins to join the Dime Lions, but after meeting Inej, who brought a counteroffer from Kaz, she decided to join the Dregs instead. After the events of Six of Crows, her Grisha power shifted from the ability to manipulate the human body to the ability to communicate with and control the dead.
• Jesper Fahey, a dark-skinned Zemeni sharpshooter with a gambling problem. He is described as being tall and lanky, with an intense facial bone structure. He is a Fabrikator as well, although he hides this ability. His father believes that he is studying in a university at Ketterdam.
• Colm Fahey, a Kaelish jurda farmer who set up shop in the country of Novyi Zem and took out a loan for Jesper to attend a Ketterdam university and went to Ketterdam to try and pay off the loan; however, he finds out that his son has gotten wrapped up in gambling and organized crime, which is not what he expected of him.
• Jan Van Eck, a rich and prominent merchant who sits on Ketterdam's Merchant Council. He makes a deal with Kaz Brekker to retrieve the creator of jurda parem from the Ice Court. He is also Wylan Van Eck's father.
• Kuwei Yul-Bo, the son of Bo Yul-Bayur, the creator of jurda parem. Kuwei was rescued from the Ice Court by the Dregs in Six of Crows, and brought back to Ketterdam. He is an Inferni, and is of the Shu nationality.
• Pekka Rollins, Kaz's ultimate adversary after Pekka conned him and his brother and ruined his life. He is the rich owner of a successful casino in Ketterdam and is always up to no good in one way or the other.
• Zoya Nazyalensky, a Squaller and a member of the Grisha Triumvirate. She was one of Nina's commanding officers in Ravka's Second Army, but ultimately worked with the Dregs to try and save Kuwei and a myriad of Grisha refugees.
• Genya Safin, a Tailor, a member of the Grisha Triumvirate, and one of Nina's teachers back in Ravka. Unlike Zoya, she is playful and teasing, and cares very much for Nina.
• Sturmhond, AKA Nikolai Lantsov, the young King of Ravka who poses as a privateer from the very same country. He is teasing and quite flirtatious, while also looking for money to pay off Ravka's debt after their disastrous civil war.

Themes in Crooked Kingdom include poverty, greed, disability and prejudice. The Grishas could be used as a metaphor for the Jews and other persecuted people. Kaz has a limp due to a previous injury and Wylan has dyslexia.

Reception

Kirkus Review states “This is dark and violent—one notable scene features a parade of teens armed with revolvers, rifles, pistols, explosives, and flash bombs—but gut-wrenchingly genuine.”[4]