Last Days of Night: A Novel (First edition.)

From Graham Moore, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of The Imitation Game and New York Times bestselling author of The Sherlockian, comes a thrilling novelbased on actual eventsabout the nature of genius, the cost of ambition, and the battle to electrify America.

New York, 1888. Gas lamps still flicker in the city streets, but the miracle of electric light is in its infancy.

The person who controls the means to turn night into day will make historyand a vast fortune.

A young untested lawyer named Paul Cravath, fresh out of Columbia Law School, takes a case that seems impossible to win.

Paul's client, George Westinghouse, has been sued by Thomas Edison over a billion-dollar question: Who invented the light bulb and holds the right to power the country?

The case affords Paul entry to the heady world of high societythe glittering parties in Gramercy Park mansions, and the more insidious dealings done behind closed doors.

The task facing him is beyond daunting. Edison is a wily, dangerous opponent with vast resources at his disposalprivate spies, newspapers in his pocket, and the backing of J.

P. Morgan himself. Yet this unknown lawyer shares with his famous adversary a compulsion to win at all costs.How will he do it?

In obsessive pursuit of victory, Paul crosses paths with Nikola Tesla, an eccentric, brilliant inventor who may hold the key to defeating Edison, and with Agnes Huntington, a beautiful opera singer who proves to be a flawless performer on stage and off.

As Paul takes greater and greater risks, he'll find that everyone in his path is playing their own game, and no one is quite who they seem.Advance praise for The Last Days of Night ';Mesmerizing, clever, and absolutely crackling, The Last Days of Night is a triumph of imagination.

Graham Moore has chosen Gilded Age New York as his playground, with outsized charactersEdison, Tesla, Westinghouseas his players.

The result is a beautifully researched, endlessly entertaining novel that will leave you buzzing.'Gillian Flynn, author of Gone Girl ';In The Last Days of Night, Graham Moore takes us back to the dawn of lightelectric lightinto a world of invention and skulduggery, populated by the likes of Edison, Westinghouse, Tesla, and the novel's hero, a young lawyer named Paul Cravath (a name that will resonate with ambitious law students everywhere).

It's part legal thriller, part tour of a magical timethe age of wonderand once you've finished it, you'll find it hard to return to the world of now.'Erik Larson, author of The Devil in the White City ';The Last Days of Night is a wonder, a riveting historical novel that is part legal thriller, part techno-suspense.

This fast-paced story about the personal and legal clash over the invention of the light bulb is a tale of larger-than-life characters and devious doings, and a significant meditation on the price we as a society pay for new technology. . . . Thoughtful and hugely entertaining.'Scott TurowFrom the Hardcover edition.