Fingersmith

Name: Fingersmith
Rating: 4.2 (9201 reviews)

by Sarah Waters

Amazon

4.2(9,201)

Sue Trinder grows up among thieves and receivers in a London household where crime is ordinary trade. She is drawn into a scheme to help a confidence man marry and defraud Maud Lilly, an heiress living under the control of her uncle in a secluded country house. The plot turns on impersonation, inheritance, sexuality and institutional power, moving between the London underworld, domestic imprisonment and the threat of the asylum.

The novel repeatedly reverses the apparent relationship between deceiver and victim. Sue and Maud are both constrained by adults who control money, sexuality and legal identity, and the scheme depends on institutions willing to accept male testimony over female experience. Victorian inheritance law and the asylum system therefore become practical tools in a crime whose success requires society itself to validate the deception.