From Graham Moore, the Academy Award-winning screenwriter of The Imitation Game and New York Times best-selling author of The Sherlockian, comes a thrilling novel – based on actual events – about 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 history – and 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 lightbulb and holds the right to power the country?
The case affords Paul entry to the heady world of high society – the glittering parties in Gramercy Park mansions and the more insidious dealings done behind closed doors. The task facing Paul is beyond daunting. Edison is a wily, dangerous opponent with vast resources at his disposal – private 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 onstage 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.
The Last Days of Night- great read. The Last Days of Night was a really fun book to read. The main character is a very young lawyer by the name of Paul Cravath who is representing George Westinghouse in a huge law suit brought on by Thomas Edison. This historical fiction book is based on this real event. Other characters in the book include Alexander Graham Bell, J.P. Morgan, and Nikola Tesla. They apparently knew each other in real life, in some cases worked together, and at other times had conflicts to varying degrees.Â
A hugely entertaining legal thriller about a turning point in world history – the lighting of the world Graham Moore (“The Sherlockian,” a NYT best-selling debut novel and the Academy Award-winning screenplay for “The Imitation Game”) has burst onto the scene with as much success as any young writer can dream of . . . and he’s earned it. With his second novel, “The Last Days of Night,” he turns his brilliant pen toward one of those historical events that everyone should understand but has somehow gotten lost in the dusty corners of history: the war to bring electric light…
Riveting Historical Novel from Dawn of the Age of Electricity This novel provides a fascinating portrayal of one of the most exciting times in world history, at least when it comes to scientific invention and the birth of technology. It was enjoyable to read, to get to know the real-life characters, and at the same time learn about these historical events in a non-text-booky way.Â