The Five of Hearts

Patricia O'Toole. Ballantine Books, $23 (480pp) ISBN 978-0-345-37314-4

Historian Henry Adams and his restless wife, Clover; John and Clara Hay; and geologist-adventurer Clarence King regularly met for tea in Washington, D.C., prior to Clover's 1885 suicide. According to PW , this ``vivid composite biography'' of the exclusive fivesome features such Gilded Age opinion-makers as Mark Twain, Edith Wharton and Teddy Roosevelt. Photos. (Oct.)

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