The Great Mistake

May 15, 2021
Lee's (High Dive, 2016) lushly detailed novel delves into the life of the formerly famous Andrew Haswell Green, who was instrumental in creating New York institutions like Central Park and in unifying the city's boroughs before being largely lost to history. In 1803, the 83-year-old "famously frugal old bachelor" was gunned down in the street. Lee moves between documenting Green's life and detailing the search for his killer by a cocaine-sniffing inspector, who, along with one of his objects of inquiry, the wealthy woman owner of a bordello, gives Lee the opportunity to sparkle as a novelist. About Green himself, and his relationship with his "special friend," politician Samuel Tilden, Lee is frustratingly discreet, sticking to the historical record and imagining Green's inner thoughts and feelings but refraining from describing any outer actions other than his documented public ones; this leaves Green as something of a cipher. Fortunately, the city in which he lives, that "cathedral of possibilities," is so vividly realized that it makes up for the lack of a compelling central character.

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June 1, 2021

In 1903, 83-year-old lawyer Andrew Haswell Green was shot dead in broad daylight outside his Park Avenue home. Greene, a real-life New York figure, is at the center of Lee's (High Dive) historical novel. Penniless and friendless when he first came to New York to apprentice in a mercantile shop, Green overcame his family's misfortune and his father's disapproval to become the "Father of New York"--the man behind the creation of Central Park, the New York Public Library, the Museum of Natural History, and much more. Despite his achievements, he never overcame the sense that he didn't belong. Inspector McClusky, himself an outsider on the police force, is tasked with uncovering the truth behind Green's murder. Told in chapters that alternate between events in Green's life and McClusky's search for the truth, Lee's novel details the remarkable life of a man now almost forgotten and a city that would not be the same today had he not lived. It's light on details of building projects, focusing instead on the man who created them. VERDICT Give this entrancing story of an exceptional man to novel-reading fans of Erik Larson and those who enjoy a little mystery with their historical fiction.--Portia Kapraun, Delphi P.L., IN

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Starred review from April 1, 2021
An exceptional work of historical fiction about one of the key figures in the development of 19th-century New York City. In November 1903, on Friday the 13th, Andrew Haswell Green was shot dead in front of his Park Avenue home. Largely forgotten now, he had been essential to the establishment of many of the city's parks, museums, and bridges and to the linking of its five boroughs into Greater New York. As he did in High Dive (2016), Lee sets up two narratives: one following highlights of Green's life up to the murder and one on the police investigation afterward. Born in 1820 into a Massachusetts farming family, young Green realizes that he doesn't grip an ax the right way, that he has "no interest in girls." At 14, he is seen almost kissing another boy. (Present-day readers may find the allusions to his sexuality euphemistic or otherwise indirect, but that is period appropriate and could mean the historical record lacks more-explicit references.) Shortly after that incident, Green is sent to New York to work in a general store, where future New York Gov. Samuel Tilden appears one day seeking pills for indigestion. They develop a lifelong friendship that will lead to Green's many civic achievements. Meanwhile, a police inspector stumbles on a clue to the shooting after visiting a bordello whose madam is linked to the case. She provides one of the book's most colorful sections (and its only significant female character), and she and the inspector dominate the novel's lighter moments. There also are two very different strands of suspense: in the whodunit, which hinges on an accepted haven for straight male urges, and in the biography, with its question of how a man deals with feelings that don't fit into the conventional narrative of the time. A highly satisfying mix of mystery and character portrait, revealing the constrained heart beneath the public carapace.

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