The Sword of Damocles

Better known for her detective fiction, Anna Katharine Green turned here to a novel of ambition and manners in Gilded Age New York. The story follows Bertram Mandeville, a gifted musician whose hunger for wealth and social standing collides with matters of the heart, and it traces how the wish to rise can hang over a life like the sword of the old Greek story. Green threads love, secrets, and moral testing through the drawing rooms and strivings of the city she knew intimately. Readers who come for her sleuths will find the same eye for character and buried motive, turned this time toward society and romance rather than crime. Free to download as a PDF and EPUB edition.