What happened? What were the driving forces behind making it happen? Who were the people involved? What were their motivations? It should also offer the reader a touch and feel for the place and time. What is a historical novel supposed to do? It should explain to the contemporary reader how this or that historical event occurred. Not only is he suing Westinghouse over the light bulb GW had developed, but he has launched 312 suits against GW. The amount demanded is staggering, one billion dollars. The tragedy of some men is not that they are denied, but that they wish they’d loved something else.Paul Cravath, a young attorney in late 19h Century New York City, is drawn into a battle of the titans, as George Westinghouse engages him to defend his company against a lawsuit filed by his nemesis. Paul remembered someone famous saying that. 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.Īll stories are love stories. 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. Yet this unknown lawyer shares with his famous adversary a compulsion to win at all costs. Edison is a wily, dangerous opponent with vast resources at his disposal-private spies, newspapers in his pocket, and the backing of J. 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.

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? A young untested lawyer named Paul Cravath, fresh out of Columbia Law School, takes a case that seems impossible to win. The person who controls the means to turn night into day will make history-and a vast fortune. Gas lamps still flicker in the city streets, but the miracle of electric light is in its infancy.

The last days of night by graham moore