The Forgers

Onetime forger Will, the refined if unreliable narrator of this artfully limned suspense novel from Morrow (The Diviner’s Tale), gets involved in the macabre mutilation-murder in a Montauk, N.Y., beachfront cottage of his girlfriend Meghan’s brother, Adam Diehl, who was, like himself and Meghan, a member an insular circle of rare book aficionados. But as soon as Will starts to discuss the blackmailing missive, written in Henry James’s distinctive hand, that undid his career as a forger, one hardly needs to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce that much more is going on than initially meets the eye. Indeed, as the story of tenuously reformed Will’s attempt to move forward with a normal life with Meghan unfolds,, the insights that Morrow offers into the lure of collecting, the rush of forgery as a potentially creative act, and underlying questions of authenticity render the whodunit one of the lesser mysteries of this sly puzzler. Agent: Henry Dunow, Dunow, Carlson & Lerner Literary Agents. (Nov.)