Rating: 4 1/2 stars

New Years Eve 1938. Legal Secretary Katy Kontent and her friend Eve sit in a smoky jazz club attempting to stretch a few dollars over the course of the evening. A chance meeting with a handsome gentleman and banker, Tinker Grey, lifts the girls’ spirits and spares their wallets.

Tinker shows the women a good time on the town and further social gatherings begin a beautiful friendship.

On the arm of Tinker the ladies are introduced to the perks of high society. However, their new-found happiness is shattered after a serious car accident—with Tinker at the wheel—that leaves Katy relatively unharmed but renders Eve permanently injured and plunges the threesome into a bleak world of circumstance and heartbreak.

While Tinker and Katy lament what may have been, Eve is deposited into the lap of luxury in Tinker’s penthouse, to be doted on by his guilty conscience and sense of duty.

Self-sufficient, determined and strong, Katy forges on and eventually finds herself ensconced in a circle of wealthy acquaintances and potential prospects. Despite her enviable surroundings, Katy watches as the once effervescent Eve withers with bitterness and self-pity, while Tinker’s magnetism fades to resignation.

As Katy delves deeper in to the world of money and power, she realizes not everything is at it appears and that behind the false façade of high-society beauty lies ugly secrets that are best kept hidden.

Towles’ voice is nothing short of brilliant. His ability to capture the distinctive quality and cohesive chemistry of the 1930s gal pal is outstanding, while the dialogue, in both wit and tone, is genius. Add to that, Towles extensive cast of intriguing characters, of which Katy Kontent is one of the most compelling literature has seen in a while.

Towles not only captures the beauty and grace of a bygone era but flawlessly reconstructs the nuance of a genre lost to the passage of time. As expected, comparisons to Fitzgerald and The Great Gatsby abound; however, not only has Amor Towles rightfully earned those comparisons, but he may very well have surpassed them.
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Hardcover: 352 pages
Publisher: Viking Adult; 1 edition (July 26, 2011)
ISBN-13: 978-0670022694