An absolutely brilliant read. This was so well-written and interesting, and the story was so wonderfully complex. I'd recommend this to just about everyone.

An impressive thriller that carries the feel of a strong non-fiction feel. An engaging period piece of the rivalry over electricity between George Westinghouse and Thomas Edison during the 1800's. We are introduced Paul Cravath, Westinghouse's defense lawyer, litigating patent suits by Edison. We follow Cravath, a likable character, as our guide on the front lines of this battle. Both Edison and Westinghouse understand the importance of claiming a larger stake in the technology for the country and it's impact.
Anyone who loves historical narratives are in for a meaty treat. Larger than life characters such as Tesla and JP Morgan to name a few, are tied to this tale, each with their ideas/program. Graham Moore writes a suspenseful story, full atmosphere and history, rich on fact and entertainment.

The Last Days of Night is the story of the battle between Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse. Which of them actually invented the lightbulb, and who holds the legal control to provide electric light to the nation? Is A/C power even safe? This is the battle between alternating current vs direct current, and though it might sound scientific and dry, this fight involves scheming, betrayal, and attempted murder. The story is told from the vantage point of Paul Cravath, Westinghouse's greenhorn wunderkind lawyer, who's still wet behind the ears but thrilled to take on the challenge of bringing down Thomas Edison, one of the most powerful men in the country.
While the story is interesting, it reads like a legal thriller. This book is reminiscent of John Grisham, which is entertaining and, in this particular case, informative, but in actuality most of it is just a series of events. You know the procedure: everything will be revealed in bite-sized pieces and it’s all going to turn out all right in the end. I enjoyed the unexpected twists, the events were exciting, and the research behind the story, especially what Moore manipulated for plot reasons, was very well done. It’s a good story, and one that I wasn’t familiar with. The Last Days of Night makes legal procedural interesting, and there's engaging fiction woven with true events and real people. The book had me on Wikipedia more than once, looking up people and events.
The Last Days of Night is well done; it's just not my usual type of historical fiction. If you're at all interested in the history of this story, or would just like to dig into a fun, fast-paced legal thriller, then this is for you. It doesn't disappoint, and each chapter leaves you wanting to turn to the next page.

Many thanks to Random House, NetGalley, and Graham Moore for the chance to review this copy.

What Worked
Using the point of view of Paul Cravath, a lawyer, Moore allows the story to be, well, a story instead of a primer on electricity. Having said that, The Last Days of Night is more technologically sound than historically sound. All the characters are based on real people, even Paul, but characters are embellished and the events are consolidated and rearranged to serve the story. For the most part, this didn't bug me as much as it has with other works.

Moore begins every chapter with an epigraph. These epigraphs are quotes by contemporaries of the story like Edison, Westinghouse, and Tesla or modern innovators and technologists like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Karl Popper. The use of our present day Edison/Westinghouse---Gates and Jobs---give the story a feeling of scope. After all, isn't the Apple/Microsoft desktop lawsuit the 20th century's current war?

What Didn't Work
While The Last Days of Night doesn't get bogged down by the science-y aspects of the story, it also doesn't have more than one speed. It chugs along at a good pace, but it lacks any of the tempo changes that signifies that something is actually happening in the story. The ending in particular felt flat to me and rather "Hollywood" in the way many things were wrapped up.

Overall
About mid-way through the books I felt that it would make a pretty good TV show. I later found out that it had already been optioned for a film with Moore serving as screenwriter. Indeed, Graham Moore wrote (and won an Oscar for) the screenplay for The Imitation Game, a movie that annoyed me a bit with the "Hollywood" rounding of Alan Turing's story. Still, I'll probably give The Last Days of Night a watch if it ever gets made. I like the period and I like the characters. The story can stand by itself.

The Last Days of Night is truly an enjoyable historical fiction novel about the rise of electricity and the battle over patents. The key players are Edison, Westinghouse, and Tesla; three unique and yet similar men on the quest to solve problems and move the world forward technologically.

The story revolves around Paul Cravath, the young and inexperienced lawyer hired by Westinghouse to battle Edison over the patent for the light bulb. Along the way Cravath learns about of innovation, greed, and the law as he delves into the world of inventors and businessmen.

The book is well balanced and maybe even a touch too light on the law and legal proceedings, but that makes it much more palatable to a wide audience. And I loved the last section by the author that pointed out all the elements based on fact and those embellished.

I highly recommend the book.

I will admit that historical fiction is right in my wheelhouse and so I was already excited to get my hands on this ARC. I found the story fascinating and I couldn't believe all that I didn't know about Edison, Tesla, and Westinghouse. The book reads so smoothly, with the characters and motivations very well drawn. I found the narrator to be a great device to introduce the interloper view into the dynamic feud of these men. I can absolutely see why there is so much hype about the book and was very happy to have read it!

Thank you Netgalley for allowing me to preview this ARC of The Last Days of Night.

This is a great read for anyone that enjoys historical fiction. Or historical fiction mystery, hictiory? I digress. Thomas Edison is quickly taking the world by storm with the invention of the light bulb and the rise of electricity. But his road is also paved with scandal. Enter our young lawyer Paul who has a seemingly impossible task ahead of him. Bring in a bit of romance, a bit of violence and you have a great read on your hands!

Thoroughly enjoyed this historic fiction based on fact account of the legal battles between Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse. The battle for the electricity market raged for a very long time and had many players such as Nikolai Tesla, the inventor who invented numerous things and made A/C current what it is today. The center of this controversy is Paul, the young lawyer who is defending George Westinghouse in what everyone seems to agree is an "unwinnable lawsuit" that Thomas Edison is pursuing against him for patent infringement on the light bulb. This book was fascinating in that it gave insight into many everyday items that we take for granted, that were invented by talented, intelligent men and women in the last century.
If you enjoy historical fiction this book will not disappoint.

This book is so good. I did not want the book to end! The storyline is written perfectly and just sucks you right into the book. I can not wait for more books from Graham Moore. Geez what a great book!!

Growing up in NJ, it's hard to escape the myth of the genius of Edison. Thus, I was fascinated with this novel from a different kind of view. Edison as a businessman is positively terrifying in this novel but then again, you don't particularly want to to root for Westinghouse and Tesla is really just doing his own thing and basically I spent the book having more feelings about dead old men than I would ever have thought considering that we know who won!

I had to keep reminding myself that this was historical fiction and not necessarily totally factual. The writing made the events seem totally real and believable.

There was a lot of interesting information in this book. Sometimes maybe more than necessary - story sometimes got lost in the facts. Or maybe that's just my perception.

It's obvious there was a lot of research done to write this book and the writing was very good.

The year is 1888. Gas lamps illuminate the night but change is coming. Thomas Edison has invented the electric light bulb, or has he? George Westinghouse has a competing light bulb and the two are locked in a epic patent lawsuit; the winner assured of a massive fortune. Edison's invention uses direct current while Westinghouse's uses alternating current. Which will win out in the marketplace and more importantly, in the courts?

Westinghouse is up against one of the most famous men in the country. Edison is not only widely known and revered but has the backing of some of the most powerful men in the country such as the financier J. P. Morgan. Westinghouse finds it difficult to find an attorney willing to take on such behemoths of industry and influence. Most law firms turn him down until he meets a young man, just out of law school but considered a prodigy.

Paul Cravath is only twenty-six years old. He takes the case but is soon consumed by it and Westinghouse is his only client. Edison has sued Westinghouse across the country in multiple courts. As the two fight the epic legal battle, Cravath is exposed to locales and individuals he never expected to see as the son of educators from Tennessee. Outside of the two businessmen, he meets and befriends others. Nikola Tesla is a brilliant inventor from Europe who cares nothing about the financial stakes as his only interest is in inventing things never seen before. Agnes Huntington is a renowned singer who has entry into the parties and meetings of what is considered top society. Paul Cravath is a novice in this environment, but his ingenuity and legal brilliance insures that his name will survive.

Graham Moore is a successful young novelist, similar in early success to Paul Cravath. He won an Academy Award for Best Screenplay for his work on The Imitation Game. His first novel, The Sherlockian, was an Amazon Best Book of December 2010 and The Last Days Of Night was an Amazon Best Book of August 2016. His forte is taking events and personalities from the past and writing an engaging tale that interests and educates the reader. What could be a dull recounting of facts is instead an intriguing tale of shifting alliances, legal maneuvers, a retelling of famous lives and a fascinating adventure. This book is recommended for readers of historical fiction.

Engrossing read; entertaining, thought-provoking, informative and well written. Historical fiction/faction at its best.

Published by Random House on August 16, 2016

The Last Days of Night is a fictionalized story of invention, but how much of the story is invented and how much is true to history I cannot say. The bare bones of the story are certainly true, and the inventors — Thomas Edison, George Westinghouse, and Nicolai Tesla — are real, as is Paul Cravath, who began a storied legal career by representing Westinghouse. How many of the novel’s details are fabricated is a question for historians. From a reader’s perspective, all that matters is the compelling nature of the story.

Young Cravath, fresh out of law school, has the formidable task of taking on Edison, whose Edison General Electric holds the light bulb patent and intends to be the sole electric company to wire the nation. Westinghouse hires Cravath to defend a lawsuit that Edison filed, claiming Westinghouse infringed his lightbulb patent. Westinghouse, on the other hand, initially relies on the dubious claim that he invented a better bulb.

Edison versus Westinghouse is the clash of two enormous egos, one of the century’s greatest inventors in competition with one of the century’s greatest engineers. According to the book, Cravath was instrumental in introducing Westinghouse to Tesla, one of the few scientists who was smarter than Edison. By inventing a practical way to make use of alternating current, Tesla solved the problem of transmitting electricity over long distances that had bedeviled both Edison and Westinghouse. Ah, but there was still the problem of building a better lightbulb, the only sure way that Westinghouse could avoid infringing Edison’s patent. Until Cravath had a better idea.

The book is a fictional look at one of history’s most engaging legal battles, but it spotlights real-world issues that continue to vex courts and politicians. What does it mean to “invent” something? When does the improvement of an old invention become a new invention? Should it be possible to patent an idea, or only the application of an idea? Isn’t there a risk that patents will stifle competition and innovation, at least if they are applied too broadly?

In the modern world, patent and copyright lawyers are kept fully employed as Google and Oracle and HP and hundreds of other high tech companies sue each other over allegedly misappropriated designs and lines of code. All of that results in money moving back and forth between corporations without doing much good for the public, which foots the bill for judges and court staff to deal with greedy businesses trying to take money from each other. And that’s what a large part of the novel is about.

The book also explores the relationship between big businesses and their allies: politicians and the press. By spreading out his considerable influence, Edison was able to buy editorials condemning Westinghouse’s new innovation (alternating current) while working to persuade legislatures to prohibit its use. Sniping between Edison and Westinghouse even led to the invention of the electric chair, providing a grim interlude in this fascinating story.

The novel is not kind to Edison, who seeks to destroy any invention he does not own, as well as the people who compete against him. Nor is it kind to J.P. Morgan, who places his own profit ahead of the common good. The most decent characters in the novel are two inventors — Tesla and Alexander Graham Bell — who both invent for the joy of inventing. Whether those characterizations are historically accurate I don’t know, but this is a work of fiction so I don’t really care.

In addition to corporate intrigue, the novel melds a crime story and a love story into the narrative. The love story involves Cravath’s second client, a woman of high society who has a surprising backstory. The novel defies categorization, but “literary historical legal thriller” probably describes it best. I’m tempted to call The Last Days of Night electrifying, but I don’t want to ascribe a poor pun to an excellent novel.

RECOMMENDED

W0w, this book was so much better than I expected. I love when historical fiction teaches me something new in an interesting and fast-paced manner. I vaguely knew about the War of Currents between Edison and Westinghouse, but this book really transported me to that time period. It is narrated by Paul Carvath, Westinghouse's young lawyer, who was at the very center of the war. It was fascinating to read everything Edison did to convince the public that direct current was better than alternating current. If you love historical fiction, this one is a great read!