The Queen of Fives

Starred review from October 28, 2024
Bridgerton meets The Sting in this effervescent offering from Hay (The Housekeepers). In 1898, London con artist Quinn Le Blanc, known as the Queen of Fives, sets her sights on Max, the wealthy Duke of Kendal, whom she plans to marry and fleece out of his fortune. Pretending to be an heiress, she finagles an invitation to a party at Buckingham Palace, where she catches Max’s eye while pretending to stop a fake royal assassination plot. According to the Rulebook that governs confidence schemes, Quinn has exactly five days to spring her trap. Standing in her way are Max’s sister and their formidable stepmother, both of whom have reasons for not wanting to see the marriage take place. As Quinn and Max get to know each other, she realizes she’s not the only one well-versed in the art of deception. Hay has conceived of a wholly original take on Victorian London and populated it with a gallery of colorful underworld types. The plotting will have readers on the edges of their seats as one twist after another sets the stage for a series of jaw-dropping revelations. This literary confection is a delectable treat.

January 1, 2025
A con woman goes up against an aristocratic family in this twisty tale of Victorian London. Quinn Le Blanc is the current Queen of Fives, reigning over the underworld from a "humble old house in Spitalfields" known as the Ch�teau. 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 Ch�teau 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 Ch�teau. 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 Ch�teau 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. A well-manufactured but shallow tale.

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December 1, 2024
Hay's follow-up to The Housekeepers (2023) is set in Victorian London and follows Quinn Le Blanc, the reigning Queen of Fives. She rules over a house of confidence women who work from a strict rule book and a cabinet of plays passed down from queen to queen. But with the house's mounting debts, Quinn decides to play her most ambitious game yet and sets her sights on the moneyed Duke of Kendal. The rules of the game are always thus: con a man out of his fortune in five days in five specified moves. This cat-and-mouse game, with shifting loyalties and interests, moves fast, and with the quick pace of events, readers have time to luxuriate in period details and the sweeping cast of characters, including a loyal manservant and a mysterious adversary who adopts disguises to thwart Quinn's plans. This is a rollicking adventure through upper-crust, historical British society, with deceit, double-crossing, and twisty intrigue that will keep readers guessing through the explosive final act.

COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.