Fingersmith by Sarah Waters.
Little Face by Sophie Hannah.
I read these two thrillers back to back, and although Fingersmith is set in Victorian London, and Little Face takes place in modern day England, a village called Spilling, the two novels have quite a lot in common. Both books deal with themes of identity, stolen identities to be exact, and babies switched at birth. The reader of both books is also forced to switch points of view in different parts of the books as the author changes the narrative point of view and to decide who is lying and who is telling the truth. Both books are steeped in deception and double-crossing and lies and megalomania.
Unfortunately, although both books are absorbing page-turners, both also have issues. Fingersmith had me speed reading to see what would happen as the narrator in the first section of the book, a gamin of the London underworld named Sue, tells about the fraud that she and a young criminal called Gentleman are practicing upon an unsuspecting, and unmarried, lady, Maud Lilly. Sue is supposed to help Gentleman gain Maud’s confidence so that he can marry her and thereby gain her fortune, payable upon her marriage. However, things are not nearly so simple as they seem which why it takes 511 pages to tell the story. In fact, the first plot twist in this story made me laugh out loud; it was neatly done and perfectly timed. There were more twists and turns to come.
As I said, I was speeding along to see what would happen to Maud and Sue when I was brought up short by what I can only describe as “soft porn” at the heart of the story. It bothered me. I thought about giving up the novel, but I had too much invested in the characters. I’m still not sure that the decision to finish reading the book was a good one, even though the questionable portions were not extensive. To state the problem clearly, if a graphic description of lesbian sex will bother you, don’t read the book. Again, it bothered me.
Little Face had other problems. It was a really good story about a woman who comes home from her first trip out of the house two weeks after the birth of her first child to find that someone has taken her daughter and substituted another baby for her. And no one believes the mom, Alice; not even the baby’s father believes that the baby in the crib is not the same baby Alice and he brought home from the hospital. The story is intriguing and brings up a lot of questions, both plot-wise and in the ideas that keep replaying about fear and duplicity and sanity. However, I didn’t feel that the plot itself was resolved properly. Maybe I’m just dense, but I didn’t see how it was that one of the characters (being purposely vague so as not to spoil the surprises in the plot) changed into a different person with a completely opposite personality at the end of the novel. Little Face also has some bad language and sickening violence, but not so much that I couldn’t skim it and get on with the story.
Take it or leave it: I read two stories with absorbing plots, but also with major problems that sort of spoiled them for me. I did finish both of them, though. You may love either or both. Most all of the reviews I read were quite positive.
Other views:
Nymeth on Fingersmith: “Being so afraid of spoiling this book for others also means that unfortunately I can’t even say much about the themes, about what I found so brilliant, about why I loved it so much. But please know that I did love it—it’s one of my favourite reads of the year so far, and I seriously suspect I have found a new author to add to my list of favourites.
Caribousmom on Fingersmith: “I thoroughly enjoyed this novel which uncovers the sinister underbelly of the human soul. Gentleman is the perfect villain – handsome, mysterious and evil. Just when the reader thinks she knows where the story is taking her, there is a twist and it goes in another direction. No one is as they seem.”
Farm Lane Books on Little Face: “Unlike much of the crime fiction I have read recently this contained no unlikely coincidences. The plot was as realistic as it is possible to get, while retaining many clever twists.”
So the author blurb tells me that Mr. Abrahams is an experienced author with several YA and adult titles under his belt, including two which received Edgar Award nominations. The writing in this new book, Reality Check, is decent and readable, but there’s something about it, something about the point of view, that is disconcerting, not quite believable, maybe, or just not quite right for me.
