Per Haskell

Per Haskell is the nominal boss of the Dregs, a gang operating from the Slat in Ketterdam. He holds the title and collects the profits, but real operational control belongs to his lieutenant, Kaz Brekker. Bardugo presents him as an aging figurehead whose authority is more performance than reality — a man whose best days as a criminal operator are firmly behind him.

Kaz is technically Haskell's lieutenant, but the hierarchy is cosmetic — Kaz controls operations, personnel, and strategy while Haskell holds only the title and the chair. Kaz maintains just enough surface deference to keep Haskell from becoming an active obstacle, instead of provoking him into open conflict. The Ice Court heist being planned and executed without Haskell's knowledge is the clearest sign that Kaz views him as a liability to be managed, not an authority to be answered.

Kaz calculates that Haskell is more useful as a maintained figurehead than as an enemy created by forced removal. By preserving Haskell's title and dignity, Kaz avoids open power struggles inside the Dregs while quietly hollowing out Haskell's influence. This reflects Kaz's broader political genius: controlling appearances is often safer and more efficient than seizing formal authority outright.

No — Kaz assembles his crew, secures financing through Councilman Van Eck, and orchestrates the entire mission without informing Haskell. This deliberate exclusion is the novel's loudest statement about Haskell's standing: a genuine leader would need to be consulted, but Haskell is simply worked around. His ignorance of the heist underscores how thoroughly his authority has been reduced to ceremony.

Haskell's driving motivation is stasis — keeping the money flowing, preserving his title, and avoiding disruption. He tolerates Kaz's dominance because Kaz makes the Dregs profitable, and profitability is the only metric he still understands. Interrogating how much power he has ceded would require action, which carries risk, so his willful ignorance serves as deliberate, self-protective comfort.

Haskell's relative weakness against rival Barrel bosses like Rollins highlights Kaz's indispensability to the gang. In Ketterdam's ruthless gang warfare, Haskell's comfortable passivity would leave the Dregs exposed, and it is only Kaz's aggressive counter-maneuvering that keeps the gang competitive. Haskell's stagnation, contrasted with the threat Rollins represents, shows how complacency functions as a vulnerability in the Barrel.

Haskell represents the old guard of Ketterdam's criminal world — men who rose through brute force and now mistake survival for continued relevance. His slow, unrecognized decline mirrors a generational shift in which intelligence and adaptability displace raw violence as the currency of Barrel power. In a novel where every major character is defined by pursuit and transformation, Haskell's stubborn stasis serves as both symbol and cautionary example.

Haskell ends the novel roughly where he began — still nominally in charge of the Dregs, still unaware of how completely he has been sidelined. His trajectory is one of unrecognized decline: no dramatic fall, no confrontation, just an increasingly ceremonial leadership. By the close of the book, it is clear that Kaz's long game likely includes replacing him entirely, a tension that carries forward into Crooked Kingdom.