Book Description

A prominent lawyer in 1940s New York investigates the mystery of his partner’s life and death in this novel by a New York Times–bestselling author. Nearing the end of his days, Adrian Suydam, half the partnership of the law firm of Suydam & Saunders, reflects on his lifelong friendship and business relationship with Ernest Saunders—a tragic and complicated man incapable of properly loving anyone. In this perceptive novel, set against the backdrop of old New York, Louis Auchincloss exposes the temptations and vicissitudes that thrust his characters toward unforeseen fates. Drawing on his own career as an attorney, Auchincloss “effortlessly conjures a bygone world of privilege” and elegantly brings to life a lost era (Publishers Weekly). Through interwoven tales of family members, clients, and such notables as Teddy Roosevelt and the Astors, readers get an insider’s look at a secretive world. Touching, comical, and erudite, Last of the Old Guard is a revealing portrait of both a high-profile law firm and a poignant friendship between two men—from an author whose works “have rightfully earned him a literary place alongside Edith Wharton and Henry James. His old-fashioned sensibility remains charming, even refreshing in an era of literati hipsters” (Los Angeles Times).