The Wharton Plot
A Novel
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
Mariah Fredericks' mesmerizing novel, The Wharton Plot, follows renowned novelist Edith Wharton in the twilight years of the Gilded Age in New York as she tracks a killer.
New York City, 1911. Edith Wharton, almost equally famed for her novels and her sharp tongue, is bone-tired of Manhattan. Finding herself at a crossroads with both her marriage and her writing, she makes the decision to leave America, her publisher, and her loveless marriage.
And then, dashing novelist David Graham Phillips—a writer with often notorious ideas about society and women’s place in it—is shot to death outside the Princeton Club. Edith herself met the man only once, when the two formed a mutual distaste over tea in the Palm Garden of the Belmont hotel. When Phillips is killed, Edith's life takes another turn. His sister is convinced Graham was killed by someone determined to stop the publication of his next book, which promised to uncover secrets that powerful people would rather stayed hidden. Though unconvinced, Edith is curious. What kind of book could push someone to kill?
Inspired by a true story, The Wharton Plot follows Edith Wharton through the fading years of the Gilded Age in a city she once loved so well, telling a taut tale of fame, love, and murder, as she becomes obsessed with solving a crime.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Fredericks (The Lindbergh Nanny) presents a vivid portrait 20th–century book publishing and New York City high society in this fascinating if leisurely paced historical standalone featuring House of Mirth author Edith Wharton as a sleuth. It's January 1911, and novelist David Graham Phillips has been shot on his way out of the Princeton Club in New York. Wharton met the man once, at the Belmont Hotel, and found him "arrogant, entitled, belittling," and undeniably handsome. After Phillips's death, his sister urges Wharton to read his soon-to-be-published novel and perhaps champion it upon release. Wharton agrees, and the more she talks to Phillips's sister, the more she becomes convinced he was targeted deliberately. Fredericks is in no hurry to identify a culprit, preferring to pepper her narrative with appearances from Wharton's old friend Henry James, scenes depicting Wharton's disintegrating relationship with her paramour Morton Fullerton, dazzling glimpses of the social lives of the Vanderbilts, and a phone call to Mary Roberts Rhinehart to ask the mystery writer's opinions on how to investigate a murder. Each of those elements adds depth and touches of humor to this entertaining mystery. Readers looking for a bit of history with their suspense will be gripped.
