Joe Kessler’s Reviews > Crooked Kingdom > Status Update

This book is breaking my heart and I'm loving every minute of it.

This book is amazing. There's such a huge smile on my face right now, and I still have a third of it left to read.

"I'm already harboring fugitives. If I'm going to aid, I may as well abet."

"That's where you're wrong," said Kaz. "I don't hold a grudge. I cradle it. I coddle it. I feed it fine cuts of meat and send it to the best schools. I nurture my grudges, Rollins."

He'd been seven then, small for his age, but old enough to know the most interesting conversations happened after his bedtime.

"I would come for you," he said, and when he saw the wary look she shot him, he said it again. "I would come for you. And if I couldn't walk, I'd crawl to you, and no matter how broken we were, we'd fight our way out together—knives drawn, pistols blazing. Because that's what we do."

This plot is humming along nicely. I'm quite glad the kidnapping that was the cliffhanger to the last book got resolved so early on, rather than being the entire point of this novel.