Hanover Place

In this toothsome, yet often ponderous saga by the author of The Ropespinner Conspiracy , the rustle of money reproducing itself is heard continuously at One Hanover Place, headquarters of the Wall Street brokerage firm owned by the illustrious Warringtons. The canny Fletcher Warrington, his dutiful son and heir Howland, and his savvy daughter-in-law Lyda are wary of the dizzying bull market of the late 1920s. With the aid of Lyda's unlikely protege Morris Miles (detested by the other partners because he's a Jew) the firm sidesteps the financial carnage of the '29 Crash. As decades pass and Wall Street changes from a playground for wily robber barons to a world of leveraged buy-outs and insider trading scandals, Thomas burdens the Warringtons with an excess of tragedies. Lyda loses two sons to war, another to drink and a fourth to drowning, and her daughter becomes a raving Christian fundamentalist. Time and place are dazzlingly evoked, but readers unfamiliar with Wall Street's terrain will find the detailed financial footwork hard going. (Jan.)