by Dawn Powell
First published 1998
Lou Donovan bounces between Manhattan boardrooms and hotel bars, spinning deals and spinning lies. The fast-talking entrepreneur keeps three women in careful rotation: his socially connected wife who opens the right doors, his disreputable ex-wife who knows too much, and his greedy mistress who wants too much. Around him swirls a cast of fellow schemers, including Trina Kameray, an adventuress whose exotic accent masks her true origins, and T.V. Truesdale, a man whose aristocratic airs can't hide his cheap suit or his hunger for any opportunity that might pay off. As Lou races between appointments and assignations, his carefully balanced world threatens to collapse. Powell captures the frenetic energy of wartime New York, where everyone hustles and no one is quite what they seem. The city becomes a stage for ambition and deception, where success depends on who you know and how well you can pretend to be someone else.
Genres: fiction, literary-fiction, american-fiction, 20th-century, business, contemporary
Vibes: fast-paced, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Manhattan
Period: Wartime
245 pages · Paperback · Steerforth