The indictment in November 2007 of Anthony (Tony) Marshall, the only child of the late legendary philanthropist Brooke Astor, for misuse of his mother's fortune led to an unheard-of scrutiny of America's discreet aristocracy. Gordon, a journalist whose New York
magazine article on the scandal in August 2006 formed the germ of this extended work, delivers a balanced, dogged—and ultimately sad—detective account of how Astor's grandson Philip Marshall ended up betraying Tony, his own father. Horrified by accounts of the shamefully reduced conditions under which his then 103-year-old grandmother was being cared for (attested to by servants and Astor's good friends Annette de la Renta and David Rockefeller), Philip legally challenged his father, the custodian of her considerable estate, and Tony's wife, Charlene, citing in particular the uncharacteristic altering of Brooke's will in the last years before she died (she had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's). Gordon sifts painstakingly through the rubble of the extended Astor family history, from Brooke's disastrous first marriage at age 17 to her dazzling reinvention in her 50s as the celebrity widow of Vincent Astor (who died in 1959), firmly ensconced at the helm of the venerable and very useful Astor Foundation. In the end, Gordon tells a sad and moving story of elder abuse. (Dec.)
