'The Last Days of Night' by Graham Moore

Published by Scribner,
22 September 2016.  
ISBN 978-1-4711-5666-3 (HB)

The dramatic events surrounding the establishment of electrical power in the USA during the large 1880s and 1890s are recounted by Graham Moore in this splendid historical novel.  Westinghouse, Tesla and Edison conflict as each tries to gain the exclusive rights to electrifying America.  Paul Cravath, a young, newly qualified lawyer (also a real participant in the events) presides over Westinghouse's legal representation.  Paul is the protagonist through whose eyes we view the inventors and the investors for this totally new business.  

There are exciting events including an accidental electrocution and a major laboratory fire but there are no murders!   The personalities of Westinghouse, Tesla and Edison are explored and the 3 men come to life - they are almost larger than life!  The excitements of negotiations  and the conflict of powerful personalities provides suspense as Paul negotiates some very. murky waters but this is not crime fiction.  It is an excellent recreation of a very interesting period of American history as major figures first establish and develop their overweening positions in US business life.

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Reviewer: Jennifer S. Palmer 

Graham Moore's first book was the superb The Sherlockian (English title The Holmes Affair).   

Graham Moore is the New York Times bestselling author of The Sherlockian and the Academy Award winning screenwriter for The Imitation Game, which also won a Writers Guild of America Award for best adapted screenplay. Moore was born in Chicago, received a B.A. in religious history from Columbia University in 2003, and now lives in Los Angeles.

 

Jennifer Palmer Throughout my reading life crime fiction has been a constant interest; I really enjoyed my 15 years as an expatriate in the Far East, the Netherlands & the USA but occasionally the solace of closing my door to the outside world and sitting reading was highly therapeutic. I now lecture to adults on historical topics including Famous Historical Mysteries.