Crime and Passion (Fingersmith - Sarah Waters)

Member Name: beccc

Product:	Fingersmith - Sarah Waters
Date:	14/08/03 (396 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Excellent settings and atmosphere, Entertaining characters, Gripping storyline

Disadvantages: None for me.

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters (2002, Virago Press) was nominated for both the Man Booker prize and the Orange prize, which is no slight achievement and which is fully deserved by this gripping and complex story.

The novel is set in 1862 in London and provides a treat of atmospheric urban Victorian settings. The den of thieves, the lunatic asylum and the creepy mansion are staples of the Gothic imagination, but Waters' descriptions make them vivid and compelling. Mrs Sucksby's shady town house is palpably seedy; Maud Lilly's home becomes increasinbly sinister with each new turn of events.

This novel is far more than the sum of these successful settings, however. The storyline twists and curves, taking the reader on an exciting journey of secrets and deceptions, constructing reality only to demolish it and show events to be far more complex than is initially supposed. Sue Trinder is an orphan raised by thieves; her mission is to infiltrate a rich country house as the new maid of Maud Lilly. Once there she has to convince Maud to marry 'Gentleman', a charming criminal who is planning to seize Maud's fortune and then have her sent to a lunatic asylum. But events spiral out of the control of any of the characters, sending the reader on a rollercoaster ride of danger and revelation, peppered by the complexity of Sue and Maud's relationship.

I would thoroughly recommend this book for its gripping storyline, successful period reconstruction and fascinating cast of entertaining, sinister and sympathetic characters.

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