The Last Days of Night

Moore makes fictional use of the real-life events that occurred in the late 1880s, when Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse locked financial horns in an all-out billion-dollar New York courtroom war over who invented the electric lightbulb. The novel’s protagonist is another historical figure, attorney Paul Cravath, who, fresh out of Columbia Law School, was tapped by the wealthy and powerful Westinghouse to defend him against Edison’s suit. Moore’s writing makes the mogul’s surprising decision seem entirely credible, and reader McClain’s vocal interpretations—Cravath as youthful but cocky, and Westinghouse as gruffly realistic, but subtly impressed—add much to that credibility. For Edison, the book’s antagonist, McClain uses a crisp, to-the-point delivery that carries a hint of mockery and more than a hint of threat. As the novel and the legal battle progress, marked by courtroom twists, electrocutions, fires, attempted murder, and hairbreadth escapes, Cravath meets a series of fascinating, fully crafted characters, all of whom are provided appropriate voice. But McClain’s talent is best on display when speaking for the maddeningly eccentric Nikola Tesla. The genius inventor who yammers away in a Serbian accent that sounds authentic and is mostly understandable, constantly shifting emotional gears from sarcasm to truculence to self-aggrandizement to, finally, genuine warmth and fondness toward Cravath. Quite a performance. [em]A Random House hardcover. (Aug.) [/em]