A fascinating historical fiction look into the one vying and legal history of the lightbulb. I enjoyed how the author took technicalities of science and the workings of the lightbulb and put them into layman’s terms. Paul is a likeable character and I was rooting for him the entire time. There were many twists and turns I didn’t see coming, and like Paul, I was blind to the strategies and game-playing other characters did. The love story with Agnes added a nice interpersonal, human touch.

*I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.* ( )

excellent historical fiction similar to E. L. Doctorow ( )

The Last Days of Night by Graham Moore turns back the clock to 1888 to when Westinghouse and Edison were locked in a patent fight. Yeah, this novel focuses on patent law. That should have been my first clue that this novel wouldn’t be for me. All of the descriptions for it made it sound so exciting. Goodreads calls it “thrilling novel based on actual events.” They mention gaslights and Tesla, and I was sold. But the main character, Paul, who is caught in the patent law struggle, is about as interesting as eggshell paint. The portrayal of historical figures—actual people—as villains, weirdos, and curmudgeons makes me incredibly uncomfortable. Add to that prose that is heavy with science jargon, and I just couldn’t finish it.

If you love patent law and electrical engineering, this is the book for you. If those subjects sound like they would put you to sleep, pass on this.

This is a fictionalized, though reasonably accurate, look at the "current war" of the 1880s and 90s. It helps if you at least know that there was an AC vs. DC current war, but you don't have to know much of the technical stuff to enjoy it, as it's pretty simply explained along the way.

The book centers on Paul Cravath, the real-life lawyer for George Westinghouse. Westinghouse is being sued by Thomas Edison over the question of who invented the light bulb. But, oh, there's so much more. For the country is on the brink of getting wired for electrical power, and which inventor is going to come out on top? A certain tall and awkward Serbian by the name of Nikola Tesla flutters around the edges of this world, tossing out ideas that can barely be comprehended by his contemporaries.

The book captures the exciting feeling of innovation and the urgency of the competition. It was intellectually pretty satisfying, and it was easy reading. From now on I think I'll be able to connect the names with a personality when it comes to those three great inventors. The author's notes at the end help separate fact from fiction.

If it sounds like your kind of thing, it probably is. ( )

To Paul Cravath, a twenty-six-year-old attorney from whom great things are expected — demanded — Manhattan in 1888 feels like an oyster he knows contains a priceless pearl. He just doesn’t know how to open it.

On the surface, Paul has what many young men on the make would envy. Despite his age and inexperience, he’s George Westinghouse’s chosen lawyer to defend a lawsuit, which, unfortunately, looks unwinnable. Actually, there are 312 of them, for that’s how many cases Thomas Edison has brought against Westinghouse, his allies, and suppliers, contending that Westinghouse’s light bulbs infringe his patent. A master at manipulating public opinion and as unscrupulous as any robber baron, Edison holds all the cards. Yet when the great inventor summons Paul at a ridiculously late hour to intimidate him, Paul has to wonder: Why did Edison go to such trouble?

Indeed, in this crackerjack legal thriller based on real characters and a true story (though certain events are altered or compressed to fit a dramatic timeline), motives are parsed to a hair’s breadth, and pressures mount from all sides. It’s not just that the damages Edison’s seeking total $1 billion, a sum beyond imagining, especially back then. If it were only money, and very old money at that, nobody reading today would care.

But Edison insists that anything he invented — or says he invented, for the patent filing contains inconsistencies — must occupy a sacrosanct, untouchable position. No one else must improve on them; only he may say how they are to be used; and only he may profit. Moreover, if he has his way, the country will be wired only for direct current, a cumbersome, inefficient, and costly system, as opposed to the alternating current Westinghouse favors. To that end, Edison buys journalists and lawmakers to attack A/C any way he can, twisting the science and engineering involved to sway an ignorant, fearful public.

So we have intellectual and economic freedom, as well as the fate of the world, in a sense, the essence of a thriller, the so-called public stakes of a novel. But there’s more here, a lot more. Paul realizes that his only chance to win his case or make sense of its Byzantine details lies in creating a potent story to compete with Edison’s. Consequently, The Last Days of Night is about the stories people tell themselves and others to justify who they are. For a thriller, this is unusual ground and all the more appealing. At the root lies this observation: “All men get the things they love. The tragedy of some men is not that they are denied, but that they wish they’d loved something else.”

Since Paul is still trying to figure out who he is, that conundrum fits him snugly. Unlike the case in many thrillers, this one’s prime mover makes many mistakes and often feels out of his element. Jealous of his senior partners at his firm (one of whom is Charles Evans Hughes, future presidential candidate, Supreme Court Justice, and secretary of state), Paul tries to maneuver secretly, often to his cost.

But certain games must be played in the open, as with a corporate dinner at Delmonico’s with Nikola Tesla, the brilliant, psychologically unstable, Serbian-born engineer whom Edison used and threw away, and whom Paul believes is the key to victory. Does Tesla harbor vengeful feelings against Edison that Paul can harness? What does the engineer know about Edison’s light bulb? And could he invent another based on a different design?

For a while, I thought Moore had ignored the other half of the gambit necessary in any novel, the private stakes. But I sold him short, for Paul’s other client, Agnes Huntington, a beautiful opera singer with as many different façades as a city block, enters the game as a major player. (She’s a historical figure too.) Younger than Paul by a few years, she nevertheless outclasses him, yet another casting against type.

Credible and gripping as The Last Days of Night is, however, I do wonder about Agnes’s ability to perform various actions necessary to the plot. The growing attraction between Paul and Agnes, though de rigueur, doesn’t always ring true. And I could have done without the earnest effort to redeem Edison and Westinghouse after the narrative has shown them to be neither warm nor fuzzy.

Nevertheless, this is a terrific novel. ( )