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Books

Grove Press
The Mysterious Press
The Mysterious Press

The Forger’s Daughter

by Bradford Morrow

Threats, promises, and the allure of Edgar Allan Poe’s Tamerlane—the rarest book in American literature—pull readers back into the dangerous world of literary forgery in this heart-stopping sequel to The Forgers

  • Imprint Grove Paperback
  • Page Count 288
  • Publication Date September 21, 2021
  • ISBN-13 978-0-8021-4955-8
  • Dimensions 5.50" x 8.25"
  • US List Price $17.00
  • Imprint The Mysterious Press
  • Page Count 288
  • Publication Date September 08, 2020
  • ISBN-13 978-0-8021-4925-1
  • Dimensions 5.5" x 8.25"
  • US List Price $26.00
  • Imprint The Mysterious Press
  • Publication Date September 08, 2020
  • ISBN-13 978-0-8021-4927-5
  • US List Price $26.00

When a scream shatters the summer night outside their country house in the Hudson Valley, reformed literary forger Will and his wife Meghan find their daughter Maisie shaken and bloodied, holding a parcel her attacker demanded she present to her father. Inside is a literary rarity the likes of which few have ever handled, and a letter laying out impossible demands regarding its future.

After twenty years of living life on the straight and narrow, Will finds himself drawn back to forgery, ensnared in a plot to counterfeit the rarest book in American literature: Edgar Allan Poe’s first, Tamerlane, of which only a dozen copies are known to have survived. Until now. Facing threats to his life and family, coerced by his former nemesis and fellow forger Henry Slader, Will must rely on the artistic skills of his older daughter Nicole to help create a flawless forgery of this stolen Tamerlane, the Holy Grail of American letters.

Part mystery, part case study of the shadowy side of the book trade, and part homage to the writer who invented the detective tale, The Forger’s Daughter portrays the world of literary forgery as diabolically clever, genuinely dangerous, and inescapable, it would seem, to those who have ever embraced it.

Praise for The Forger’s Daughter

“Evocatively rendered and emotionally resonant, this literary crime novel is the real deal. Morrow’s gothic tale bears comparison with Poe’s own work.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“How fitting that the central literary object in Bradford Morrow’s new novel, The Forger’s Daughter, is a rare work of Edgar Allan Poe. Morrow has long been a master of the literary novel. But with his two forger novels, like Poe himself Morrow has secured his high and enduring place in our cultural landscape in part by demonstrating the deep thematic and aesthetic connectedness of compelling mystery and serious literature. This book will race the pulse and nourish the mind in a dazzlingly seamless way. Morrow’s brilliance is unforgeable.”—Robert Olen Butler, award-winning author of Paris in the Dark

“Most sequels end up feeling like a pale shadow of their originals, but this one’s more like a long-lost twin: unexpected and differently scary.  The Forger’s Daughter is a fully-formed and satisfying complication of the problems in The Forgers, a morally complex look at the way we forge the bonds of family and friendship, and the very real way in which these bonds are, in a sense, forgeries.  This is a book about both what we hide and what we agree not to look at too closely so as to be able to go on living not only with those around us, but with ourselves.”—Brian Evenson, award-winning author of The Open Curtain

Praise for Bradford Morrow and The Forgers:

“An excellent suspense novel. . . Bradford Morrow is, quite skillfully, paying homage to one of Agatha Christie’s most famous whodunits. Yet even then, he offers a few twists of his own and will keep all but the most astute mystery aficionado guessing about the truth until the end.”—Washington Post, on The Forgers

“From its provocative opening line . . . Bradford Morrow’s latest novel takes on a knowing, noirish tone, like a crime movie by the Coen brothers. . . . The pleasure of reading The Forgers comes not only from trying to figure out what happened to Diehl but also in deciding, chapter by chapter, how much trust to grant the narrator, who is our only source.”—Miami Herald, on The Forgers

“Like the love child of Edgar Allan Poe and Arthur Conan Doyle . . . delightful to read.”—NPR.org, on The Forgers

The Forgers is quintessential Bradford Morrow. Brilliantly written as a suspense novel, lethally enthralling to read, and filled with arcane, fascinating information—in this case, the rarified world of high-level literary forgery.”—Joyce Carol Oates, on The Forgers

The Forgers is remarkable. Bradford Morrow is remarkable. The Real Thing, which is rare on this earthly plane.”—Michael Cunningham, author of The Hours and The Snow Queen, on The Forgers

“Written in a highly polished style . . . The Forgers is an unusual blend of mystery, romance, and the fine art of the fake.”—Mystery Scene, on The Forgers

“[An] artfully limned suspense novel. . .The insights 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.”—Publishers Weekly on The Forgers (starred review)

“Will, the narrator of Morrow’s seventh novel, is a fine creation.”—Kirkus Reviews, on The Forgers