The Great Mistake

Andrew Haswell Green was a self-made man. Born to a struggling farming family in 1820, he went on to reshape New York into a modern metropolis. Now, at the age of eighty-three, he lies murdered, a secret locked within him that may finally break free. As the detective assigned to the case traces his ghost across the city, other spectres appear. Among them is an ambitious politician, Samuel, whose relationship with Green was a source of joy and frustration, yearning and devotion.

As restlessly inventive and absorbing as its protagonist, The Great Mistake is the story of a city transformed, and a singular man: the father of New York.