Photograph: Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert/Getty Images 14 Fingersmith by Sarah Waters (2002) Moving from the underworld dens of Victorian London to the boudoirs of country house gothic, and hingeing on the seduction of an heiress, Waters’s third novel is a drippingly atmospheric thriller, a smart study of innocence and experience, and a sensuous lesbian love story - with a plot twist to make the reader gasp.