The Unsealing: Love, Lust, and Murder in the Gilded Age (An Avenging Angel Detective Agency (Tm) Mystery), Collector's Limited Edition

by Robert Brighton

Overview

This highly anticipated debut novel by Robert Brighton is inspired by a true crime ‘murder

of the century’ and transports us to Buffalo, New York, set against the backdrop of Gilded

Age splendor and excess…

Named BookLife “Editor’s Pick” - “… Written with grace and power …”

Love, Lust, and Murder in the Gilded Age

Buffalo, New York, 1901 … a muscular, young city, Queen of the Lakes … The Electric City …

where the money spent to build Newport mansions and Park Avenue townhouses is made, plays

host to the world’s greatest fair, the Pan-American Exposition and its 8,000,000 guests.

Less than a mile from the great spectacle, a web of love, lust, and intrigue is forming among the elite

Ashwood Set. But life is never fast enough, or high enough, for the Ashwood Set, who plunge

headlong into a deadly whirlpool of official corruption, financial deceit, and infidelity that can only

end in disaster.

The Unsealing is a gripping, psychological tale of forbidden pleasures and fathomless pain.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798986517803
Publisher:	Copper Nickel Press
Publication date:	02/28/2023
Series:	The Avenging Angel Detective Agency(tm) Mysteries , #1
Edition description:	Special ed.
Pages:	416
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Award-winning author Robert Brighton is an authority on the Gilded Age, and a

great believer that the Victorian era was anything but stuffy. In his Avenging Angel Detective

Agency™ Mysteries, Brighton exposes the turbulence of the era – its passions, dreams, and disasters

— against a backdrop of careful research on the places, sights, sounds, and smells of the time.

When he is not walking the streets in the footsteps of the Avenging Angels, sniffing out

unsolved mysteries, Brighton is a wanderer. He has traveled in more than 50 countries around the

world, personally throwing himself into every situation his characters will face — from underground

ruins to opium dens — and (so far) living to tell about it.

A graduate of the Sorbonne, Paris, Brighton is an avid student of early 20 th Century history

and literature, an ardent and relentless investigator, and an admirer of Emily Dickinson and Jim

Morrison. He lives in Virginia with his wife and their two cats.

Editorial Reviews

"The Unsealing…bursts with with fascinating detail, character, [and] incident…Brighton deftly captures the champagne ennui of [a] social scene jolted by scandal…brittle chatter and secret longings building to a murder…written with grace and power, capturing the moment that electricity lit up the world…"

- BookLife Reviews Editor's Pick

"...A skillful storyteller, the author mixes sardonic commentary and well-scripted dialogue.... An addictive page-turner with rich historical details and vivid, flawed characters..."

- Kirkus Reviews

"...exciting, quick-paced, intriguing...with a fantastic atmosphere and strong characters, this is a sensational story that fans of thrillers and well-drawn mysteries will surely enjoy...The Unsealing is a thrilling story that will keep you turning one page after the other from start to finish..." 5/5 - Literary Titan

“…Robert Brighton has written a story that catches the reader’s attention from the opening overture to the last page of the book…intrigue, murder, romance, love lost, ill-gotten gains, blackmail, greed, and guilt…Brighton waltzes these characters throughout the story…this is a must-read…it kept me up at night to finish it…” 5/5

- Readers’ Favorite

From the Publisher

2023-01-09
Greed, political corruption, and lust propel this dark novel set in Buffalo, New York.

Arthur Pendle and Terence Penrose are roommates and best friends during college and law school in New Haven, Connecticut. After graduation, they travel together to Buffalo, where, in 1889, they open Pendle & Penrose, Attorneys at Law, a flourishing practice that for eight years provides both with a substantial living. Terry is the rainmaker and Arthur is the legal whiz—until 1897, when Terry is offered the position of district attorney for Erie County. As Terry’s star rises, Arthur’s solo law practice dwindles. Then Terry makes an offer Arthur cannot afford to refuse. And as Arthur’s income increases exponentially, his commitment to the righteousness of the legal profession slips into history. Back at home, Arthur’s wife, Cassie, an offspring of one of New England’s wealthiest families, has her own issues. Despite the couple’s high social standing, Cassie is emotionally insecure and uncomfortable with people. Regrettably, she has found a source of comfort—opium and a variety of other drugs of the day. Across town, in an avant-garde community known as Ashwood, are Alicia and Edward Miller. Their fraying marriage contributes to the next phase of Arthur’s ultimate downfall. Once he meets the tempting Alicia at the Ashwood Social Club (“On the dance floor, Alicia Hall Miller’s dainty feet and petite frame made her look like a ballerina, small and strong and lithe”), his enchantment with her becomes obsessive. Brighton’s gritty series opener rips off Buffalo’s elite, shiny facade during the Gilded Age. A skillful storyteller, the author mixes sardonic commentary and well-scripted dialogue to control a plotline in which the primary characters become inexorably trapped by their own greatest weaknesses. Lead protagonist Arthur is the most fully developed. Readers are drawn step by step through the moral deterioration of a man driven to reckless decisions by arrogance, a craving for wealth, and a passion for Alicia. Unfortunately, Cassie, potentially a complex character, is only minimally explored. There are no heroes here, although there are a few survivors. And after all the emotional turmoil, jealously, violence, and broken lives, the riveting narrative ends with a humorous, intriguing wink to readers.

An addictive page-turner with rich historical details and vivid, flawed characters.

Kirkus Reviews