A review by daja57
Fingersmith by Sarah Waters

3.0

Sue, brought up among thieves, is sent as a maid to a posh house as part of a plan to steal the fortune of an heiress. Set in mid to late Victorian times and with settings of a thieves' kitchen, a stately home and a lunatic asylum, there is a very Dickensian feel to this novel. It is big and slow-moving, taking time to build the characters, all of whom and beautifully drawn (in contrast to Dickens whose eccentrics are more picturesque but less convincing). The thoroughness of the story-telling meant that, for me, the story dragged a little in the second part (when the events of the first part are more or less repeated from the perspective of a different protagonist and so there is little 'new' stuff). But the ending of the first part had a brilliant twist I completely failed to see coming.

There are moments of pin-point-perfect description: "The moon struck the rushes of the further bank, and made spears of them, with wicked points ... I saw the oars dip and rise, and scatter coins of moonlight." and there are moments straight out of Dickens: "You think you've torments ... Have these knuckles for an hour - have these thumbs. Here's torments, with mustard on. Here's torments, with whips."

A large and slow-moving book with a very Dickensian feeling for the period.

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize.