num_pages: 253
description: One rainy morning in 1871 in lower Manhattan, Martin Pemberton a freelance writer, sees in a passing stagecoach several elderly men, one of whom he recognizes as his supposedly dead and buried father. While trying to unravel the mystery, Pemberton disappears, sending McIlvaine, his employer, the editor of an evening paper, in pursuit of the truth behind his freelancer’s fate. Layer by layer, McIlvaine reveals a modern metropolis surging with primordial urges and sins, where the Tweed Ring operates the city for its own profit and a conspicuously self-satisfied nouveau-riche ignores the poverty and squalor that surrounds them.
language: English
title: The Waterworks
titlecomplete: The Waterworks
genres: Literary Fiction, Literature, Fiction, Historical Fiction, 19th Century, New York, Historical, Novels, American, Mystery
ratings_count: 3204
places: New York City, New York
publisher: Random House