Buffalo is hardly America’s most exciting city nowadays,
but at the turn of the 20th century, it was a star. In this debut
novel, Lauren Belfer spotlights her hometown and one of the factors
that made Buffalo sparkle in 1901: electricity. The power of Niagara
Falls was being harnessed then by the burgeoning electric industry.
Protagonist Louisa Barrett’s connection to the Niagara hydroelectric
power project is that her late best friend’s husband, Tom Sinclair, is
its director. Also, Louisa is head of a girls’ school on whose board
sit many of Buffalo’s most powerful men, advocates of the project to
bring electricity to the masses. Tom sees himself as bettering society
through electric light. Environmentalists see the Niagara power station
as depleting the natural resource of water. And some people suspect Tom
is a murderer after his two chief engineers die suspiciously. Louisa is
torn between loyalty to her long-time friend and his daughter Grace and
uncovering crime. She also is protecting a personal secret that
involves the highest levels of the US government and has profound
implications for Tom and Grace Sinclair.
Belfer keeps the story moving and covers a number of issues besides
electrification — political influence, racism, the treatment of women,
labor unions and socialists, and immigration among them. The
information about how electricity was brought into American homes will
be new to many readers. The story of America’s first great
environmental battle will be eye-opening to anyone who thought
environmental activism began later. Unfortunately, the quality of the
book declines at the end with what seems an unnecessary death and
downbeat ending.
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