Quinn Le Blanc is the current Queen of Fives, reigning over the underworld from a “humble old house in Spitalfields” known as the Château. At 26, she has her eye on a new mark and is planning the ultimate con, to be carried out in five steps over five days as all proper Château cons must. The target is the Duke of Kendal, who’s about to have a 30th-birthday ball. But the Kendal family rarely goes out in society, their money so old and entrenched they don’t need to parade it around, and Mr. Silk, Quinn’s right-hand man, is wary. As Quinn sets the wheels in motion, things don’t go as smoothly as she’d hoped: The Kendals have their own secrets and a troublemaker is waiting in the shadows to wreak havoc on the whole Château. Quinn has five days to pull it off, if she can survive until then. Hay has created a specific, detailed world for his characters to inhabit, a veneer of Victorian London with the intricate rituals of the Château layered underneath. Everyone is a potential agent (or double agent), and there’s a trick up everyone’s sleeve. This leads to a twisty-turny plot, with different chapters told from the perspectives of different characters—including Quinn, Mr. Silk, the duke, and his sister—with secrets unraveling with each turn of the page. Unfortunately, however, the story jumps around so much that it’s hard for a reader to get a real insight into the characters and why they’re doing what they’re doing. The story is well constructed and the final payoff is impressive, but the book feels something like one of Quinn’s cons: full of flash and dazzle to distract from a lack of depth.
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English (US) ·