The forger's requiem: a novel

"A gripping literary thriller and the conclusion to the acclaimed Forgers trilogy-"like the love child of Edgar Allan Poe and Arthur Conan Doyle" (NPR.org)-The Forger's Requiem delves into the world of expert forgery, rivalrous fury, and generations of dark family secrets. 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, Joyce, and 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, and London, before 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 electrifying conclusion of the trilogy Joyce Carol Oates has called "lethally enthralling to read.""--