The Night Watch

Beginning in 1947, this novel traces the lives of four interconnected Londoners back through time into the Blitz. I’m a complete tragic for anything set in this time and place, so it’s no surprise that I ripped through it quite happily.  As an example of Waters’s work, it’s relatively typical, though certainly not her best (probably The Little Stranger or Fingersmith, though I can’t claim to have read them all). The reverse chronological is the perfect mechanism for this particular plot, and it makes me wonder which she decided on first, format or content; I like to imagine her coming up with the story and then, in a flash of 2am inspiration, realising how much more effective it could be if the flux, so to speak, were reversed.

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Fingersmith

In 19th century England, a rogue enlists the help of a petty thief (the fingersmith of the title) to seduce a young woman of means. It’s hard to say much more without spoilers, because the plot twists itself into something completely new several times before getting to its conclusion. Story is definitely king here (or rather, I suppose, queen). Not that the prose isn’t pretty good: tight but lyrical, with descriptive passages that avoid slowing down the momentum. But the writing is there as a vehicle for the plot, not the other way around. The result is a suspenseful and engaging page-turner which I personally enjoyed immensely. Probably the greatest compliment I can pay it is that when I read it at the gym, I was taken completely by surprise at the machine timing out.