Review: The Housekeepers by Alex Hay

There are three things needed to make the ideal heist story. First, a great ensemble cast, and the capacity to make you care about each member and their individual motivations and angles in a short space of time. Second, a mark who kind of deserves it — no one wants to feel bad for whoever’s being cleared out. And finally, plenty of things that go wrong. Even the best-laid plans fly out the window when applied to a real situation, and a heist where everything goes perfectly just isn’t interesting.

That sounds like a lot to balance, right? But luckily for you, Alex Hay has got this absolutely perfect in The Housekeepers. We have that great ensemble cast, spending more time with some than others, but somehow feeling very quickly like we know them all intimately. Although don’t be fooled, they still have their secrets, and The Housekeepers is full of brilliantly paced twists and reveals. The key players come from London’s criminal underbelly, triggering several comparisons to Sarah Waters’ Fingersmith which I can kind of see. These con artists, through means nefarious and genuine, insinuate themselves into the downstairs servants’ world at a grand house in Mayfair.

This brings us to our deserving mark. ‘Madam’s’ father has recently died, and shamefully soon following Madam wants to throw a ball and put herself out on the marriage market. In Madam, we find a tightly buttoned character, seemingly manipulative and cold, although again there are hidden depths and connections. For these reasons I’m not going to linger too long on her character, but the tensions between Madam and gang leader Mrs King led to some truly electric scenes.

And finally, Things Go Wrong. Again, I can’t (and wouldn’t want to) go into detail here for fear of spoiling this brilliant rollercoaster ride of a book, but there is plenty to keep our gang on their toes.

All of these plot beats are hit perfectly and delivered in Hay’s smooth prose, which seems to effortlessly convey character and emotion. Heist books can be a cold affair, tied up purely in the cleverness of The Plan and its instigators, but The Housekeepers really does deliver on heart as well. I highly recommend for anyone who likes a clever book that’s not absorbed in its own cleverness, and for those who want to care about their characters, despite their dubious, nefarious motives.