By Alex Hay

I only realized after starting this novel that heist stories usually dovetail into two very disparate directions, either clever and glossy (à la Ocean’s Eleven or Leverage) or gritty and desperate (Six of Crows, for one). I enjoy both in general, but currently have more of the emotional capacity for the first, and The Housekeepers decidedly falls into the second.

The recently dismissed housekeeper from a wealthy household gathers together a team to strip the house of all its valuables. The team is all women, most of whom have served in domestic positions, with all the poverty and humiliation that entails. Each woman has her own private motivations and ambitions, and the cooperation of the team always feels like a very fragile agreement that could break at any time.

None of them are particularly likeable, though I sympathized with all of their positions and the actions they felt forced into. It reminded me a little of Parasite, where the extreme inequality is a prison for everyone involved, whether on the luxurious side or not. I could see a solution where all the characters find true purpose and satisfaction, but given the world they lived in, it was impossible, and instead I read in dread of who would get hurt the worst.

And that world, the society they live in, created a more finely pointed, subtle dread than just the suspense of the heist itself. These women who had once been domestic servants are now in much more precarious financial positions, but also have more personal freedom on their own. When they go back into service to set up the operation, the grind of the drudgery becomes its own obstacle, as manual labor and exhaustion take their toll.

The whole thing became a bit much for me at times, honestly—at times I couldn’t put the book down, but other times I had to take a break after a few pages—and the book carries it right to the end. There was no satisfying wheeling out of the perfect plan, just nail biting, and I was hanging onto the blurb raving about “a sensational triumph and the ultimate takedown of those in power” to ensure a happy ending.