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Atlantic Monthly Press
Atlantic Monthly Press
Atlantic Monthly Press
NEW!

The Forger’s Requiem

by Bradford Morrow

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

A gripping literary thriller that brings readers inside the world of expert forgery, rivalrous fury, and generations of dark family secrets, with Mary Shelley’s voice and life woven throughout

  • Imprint Atlantic Monthly Press
  • Page Count 288
  • Publication Date January 14, 2025
  • ISBN-13 978-0-8021-6415-5
  • Dimensions 5.5" x 8.25"
  • US List Price $27.00
  • Imprint Atlantic Monthly Press
  • Publication Date January 14, 2025
  • ISBN-13 978-0-8021-6416-2
  • US List Price $27.00

Literary forger Henry Slader, assaulted and presumed dead by his longtime nemesis, Will, awakens in a shallow grave, suffocating in dirt. Concussed and disoriented, Slader exhumes himself and sets out to exact revenge on his rival, orchestrate Will’s downfall, and make a fortune along the way—armed with a devastating secret about Will’s past.

Slader quickly draws in Will’s daughter, Nicole, wielding his threats against her father to blackmail her into forging inscriptions by such authors as Poe, Hemingway, James Joyce, and Gertrude Stein. As Nicole’s skill grows, so does her devotion to—and doubts about—her father’s integrity, until she commits the ultimate betrayal for the sake of his freedom. With breathtakingly precise background knowledge and virtuoso execution, Nicole forges a suite of brilliantly convincing and surpassingly valuable letters by Frankenstein author Mary Shelley—planting within them the seeds of Slader’s doom.

Moving between upstate New York, a village in Ireland, London, and ending in a shocking standoff at the site of Mary Shelley’s grave in a coastal town in Southern England, The Forger’s Requiem is both a compelling standalone novel and the crescendo ending to the trilogy Joyce Carol Oates has called “lethally enthralling to read.”

Praise for The Forger’s Requiem:

“Spellbinding . . . a brilliantly constructed story of revenge, redemption, deception, and betrayal . . . Spectacularly well written and fiendishly clever, this is both a terrific conclusion to a trilogy and a wonderfully satisfying standalone.”Booklist

“A compelling tale of decades-long hatred . . . An out-of-the-ordinary treat for serious fiction readers. Distinct in subject matter but not tone, this book echoes Daphne du Maurier’s Gothic novel Rebecca and Poe’s fevered tales.”Library Journal

Praise for The Forger’s Daughter:

New York Times “10 Best Crime Novels of 2020” selection
Publishers Weekly “Best Mysteries & Thrillers of 2020“ selection
An Amazon “Best Books of the Month: Mystery, Thriller & Suspense” selection
New York Post “Best Books of the Week” selection

“In Bradford Morrow’s The Forger’s Daughter, there is artistry in the successful re-creation of rare books and manuscripts…His sympathetic cast of characters—Henry aside—face difficult moral choices and try to prove the old cliché that there is honor indeed among (literary) thieves.”Wall Street Journal

“Love is strange. It ennobles some people, makes fools of others, and occasionally leads to murder. In Bradford Morrow’s lovely literary mystery, The Forger’s Daughter, the love of books causes all of the above…The elaborate artistic details that go into a literary forgery is itself a work of art.”—Marilyn Stasio, New York Times Book Review

“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

“The novel flits evocatively from upstate New York farmhouses to Manhattan auction houses, and there’s an aptly gothic tinge to the tense drama that ensues.”Guardian

“This is a crime novel for booklovers . . . Fascinating and vividly rendered.”Booklist

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 (starred review), on The Forgers

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