Book summary

Susan Trinder is an orphaned adolescent who is taken in by Grace Sucksby and her band of pickpockets (fingersmiths) in this Dickensian novel. A scheme to wrest away by fraud the fortunes of an old book-collector turns into something else entirely when Susan and the innocent girl who is meant to be her dupe become rather more than friends. A New York Times Notable Book for 2002.

Media reviews

"Nobody writing today surpasses the precocious Waters's virtuosic handling of narrative complexity and thickly textured period detail. This is a marvelous novel."