The Last Days of Night
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3.6 • 8 Ratings
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- £5.99
Publisher Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A thrilling novel based on actual events, about the nature of genius, the cost of ambition, and the battle to electrify America—from the Oscar-winning screenwriter of The Imitation Game and author of The Sherlockian
SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING EDDIE REDMAYNE
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 light bulb and holds the right to power the country?
The task facing Cravath is truly daunting -- win. And the stakes are immense: the winner of the case will illuminate America. 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...
Praise for The Last Days of Night
‘Moore weaves a complex web. . . He conjures Gilded Age New York City so vividly, it feels like only yesterday’ Entertainment Weekly
‘A model of superior historical fiction . . . Graham Moore digs deep into long-forgotten facts to give us an exciting, sometimes astonishing story of two geniuses locked in a brutal battle to change the world. . .[A] brilliant journey into the past’The Washington Post
‘Mesmerizing, clever, and absolutely crackling…a beautifully researched, endlessly entertaining novel that will leave you buzzing’ Gillian Flynn, author of Gone Girl
‘Part legal thriller, part tour of a magical time – the age of wonder – and 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
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
It’s not easy to spin a gripping tale from a patent infringement lawsuit. But author Graham Moore won a best adapted screenplay Oscar for The Imitation Game thanks to his talent for making history riveting and relevant. The Last Days of Night dramatises the rivalry between Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse over who invented the lightbulb. The novel’s told from the point of view of the lawyer caught between these two titans of invention. Moore captures the legal and personal intrigue, while also quietly instructing in AC/DC currents and the brutal methods of Gilded Age corporate raiders.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Moore (The Sherlockian), again turning to historical events for the basis of a thrilling plot, tackles the "war of the currents," which pitted Thomas Edison against George Westinghouse in a turn-of-the-century New York legal battle. Fresh out of Columbia Law School, Paul Cravath is trained in research and dealing with concrete facts; he is not used to being at the center of a billion-dollar lawsuit, but that is exactly where he finds himself after agreeing to work with George Westinghouse. The two inventors become locked in a back-and-forth legal dispute after Thomas Edison claims he invented the light bulb and sues Westinghouse, who then issues a countersuit against Edison for violating Westinghouse's own patent. At the heart of the matter is determining who invented the light bulb and whether or not the patent covers all forms of the bulb. Paul hopes to win the case by enlisting the help of Nikola Tesla, but that proves to be a much more unruly prospect than he initially expected, as the eccentric man agrees to help but brings with him new challenges. Amid the bickering of the iconic characters, Paul ends up emerging as the emotional center, trying to hold strands of the case together and stay true to his own moral standards. While the plot starts off slowly, the tempo picks up as events within the court begin to unfold. Moore's extensive research is apparent, and readers are likely to walk away from the book feeling as informed as they are entertained.
