I really enjoyed the way this book was written. It had an interesting perspective and voice. However, the "big reveal" wasn't really a big reveal to me ( )

Rare book collector, Adam Diehl, is found in his secluded home, his hands severed, his books and papers in disarray. Upon inspection, it appears he was a forger of long-dead author's signatures, which would increase the price of already valuable books many times over. Among the suspects are his sister's boyfriend, Will, who had been a prolific and talented forger and who is also our narrator.
Meghan, the deceased's sister and protagonist's girlfriend, is also in the book trade, as she owns an independent bookshop in Manhattan. She found out about Will's little hobby along with the rest of the world and stuck by him as he paid his penance. She's the best thing Will has ever had in his life, which is why, when someone starts threatening him, using Arthur Conan Doyle's handwriting, no less, he keeps it a secret, in an effort to protect her.
He doesn't know who's sending the threats nor what they want nor why they want it, all he knows is he'll do what needs doing in order to keep safe the one bit of happiness he has, and to keep the promise he's made to Meghan, which is that he'd stay out of the the forging game. But someone is trying to force his hand.
On the surface this book should have been right up my street--it's about the book world and I worked in independent bookshops for years--but it fell a little flat. The main character was a criminal, but not a very interesting one. He kept saying how solid his relationship was with Meghan and how they fell for one another at first sight, but I didn't feel it. That could be because Will wasn't a real person--at one point he talks about forgers also forging who they are and not being true humans, which I interpreted as a type of sociopathy. He definitely has that flat affect going on and not seeming to really engage with the world, only being concerned with protecting his own hide, as well as being close to only one person. I definitely don't need to like a character--any of the characters of a novel, really--but they do need to be interesting. Will wasn't.
Writing-wise it was better than most books out there, but it wasn't up to par with Morrow's The Diviner's Tale, which was excellent. The text suffered from 'had I known-itis', which is where the narrator kept telling us that things were about to get a lot worse or that his bubble of happiness was to be short-lived. It's something of which lesser authors are often guilty but I found it surprising in this author.
The plot was what kept me reading--needing to know who did it and what was going to happen next, which is why I read it in two days. It moved at a clip, which is what you want in a thriller. I didn't know where things were going and, though I worked out some things before the end, I still didn't know the particulars.
I would recommend this one to fans of John Dunning's Bookman series and people interested in literary thrillers like Matthew Pearl's books. 4/5 stars.
[I was given a free copy of this book to review.] ( )

* My thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the opportunity to review this book. *

With an opening sentence like "They never found his hands", you can expect that you're in for a serious crime story. The Forgers does not deliver the gruesomeness that that opening suggests, but it is still a twisty murder mystery with a likeable protagonist.

The corpse in question is that of Adam Diehl, brother-in-law of notorious forger Will. Will has entertained suspicions that Adam might also have been a forger, but has kept those suspicions to himself. However the murder brings his own past back under the microscope, and he finds he needs to defend himself from his wife's suspicions, without exposing Adam. Just when he thinks that he has succeeded, he starts getting threatening letters that could only have been produced by a master forger, one at least as good as himself.

Will and his wife Meghan retreat to an Irish village while Will tries to go straight and leave his tarnished reputation in the rare book world behind him. Things are not so simple though, and trouble soon follows.

I liked the unusual milieu that this novel is set in, and the mounting tension that Will feels as his past closes in on him while he struggles to make a life beyond forgery and faking. ( )

Bradford Morrow may be best known as editor of the literary journal Conjunction, where he has published a very ecumenical assortment of avant garde and otherwise non-traditional poets and prose writers. For this book, however, it may be more relevant that he also has edited a collection of contemporary Gothic fiction.

That phrase describes Morrow's "The Forgers" well. The book's striking opening sentence has been quoted in most of the Goodreads reviews below, beginning an unreliable narrator's amoral story told in an often dense 19th century prose-style. Although, by contemporary standards, there are many oblique, turgid passages, the book is actually a quick read.

Certainly not the best book I've ever read, but I am interested enough to read other books by Morrow.
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The ending was a surprise to me, although it occurred to me early on, but I dismissed it based on the way the author spun the tale. I would read more from him, but I was sad at the end. ( )

I'm going to say this: if you start reading the Forgers and are put off by the narration style, you may not want to continue. This is a book that is shaped by Will -- what he tells you, what he doesn't, and how. If you don't click with him, this is going to be a slog.

But if you do click with him, you're in for a story that winds its way through rare books and forgeries. It's a sort of... academic wild ride. ( )

I chose this book because I thought a book about books (even forgeries) would be interesting. I listened to the audio version of the book.

The narration is done by the character of Will--a forger who was caught and has supposedly gone on the straight and narrow. The narration is very flat. As a result, it often seems like the plot is going nowhere.

I was surprised at how many things WIll kept from Meghan (his girlfriend and later wife). He wanted to protect her--but after knowing the ending, I think he wanted to protect himself as well.

I wondered why, when he got a letter that appeared to claim that the writer had killed Adam, he didn't turn it over to his lawyer or the authorities--or at least show it to someone, even if they didn't believe him or thought he'd written it himself (in the case of the authorities. I would hope his lawyer would believe him!) rather than just going along with the blackmail scheme. I guess he was trying not to call attention to himself with the authorities--though he made some foolish choices when it came to Slater.

I thought the ending was a bit confusing (at least in the audio verison). One sentence he and Meghan have had their first child and moved back to New York. The next, he's talking about he and Meghan having separate apartments. It took me a bit to realize that he was going back to the beginning of the book and confessing to the crime. Now I worry that Meghan is married to a psychopath! ( )

Welcome to world of rare books, their collectors and their forgers, of which Will is one of the best. Not only is his line of work profitable because he does it so well, but it gives him a thrill every time a perfectly forged signature comes from his pen. Will firmly believes he is “improving” the rare books as he adds signatures as well as building a “more interesting” history for the books and their long dead authors. How could that be a bad thing? As is bound to happen, Will is exposed as a forger. Making restitution to most (well, some – okay, those who asked) of his clients and promising he is reformed he manages to hold on to and marry Meghan, the love of his life. Meghan’s brother Adam (also a forger) had been brutally murdered, hands cut off, his books destroyed and his home torn asunder. The killer was never apprehended. When Will begins to receive threatening letters, written in the penmanship of Arthur Conan Doyle, attempting to blackmail him back into forgery he is frightened for Meghan and yet torn at the same time. He misses the excitement of the forgery but knows he will lose Meghan if he returns to that world. And, just how much does this mysterious letter writer know about Will anyway?

As a reader one would think any book starting with the line, “They never found his hands” would be a pretty thrilling mystery. Not so much in this case. The murder hovers in the background like an omnipresent shadow that you expect will be drawn back into the main story at any moment. And it is … at the very end. The book held my attention because I enjoyed reading the detailed descriptions of how the forgeries were accomplished. I didn’t like Will very much, but come to think of it maybe that held my attention too. I wanted to know if good-Will or bad-Will would win out when it came to his promise of reform to Meghan. I won’t spoil it, but I wasn’t really surprised.
( )

A mystery about the murder of a suspected forger. A much darker read than I was expecting, especially towards the end. I did enjoy the references to classic authors, book collecting, and literature in general (as an bibliophile would). I did start to suspect the conclusion approximately half-way through the book and found the ending somewhat unsatisfying. ( )

If you're looking for something interesting and different, this is the book for you! Want a page turner? You want a different read. I really enjoyed this story, and found some interesting plot twists. But, didn't find myself glued to the pages. This said, I would by all means recommend reading "The Forgers"! ( )

Easy to read book - if you can glaze over the incredibly poor word choices. Not a very good whodunit as it's obvious from the beginning. ( )

** spoiler alert ** Adam Diehl, a rare book dealer, is discovered with a blow to his head and both his hands chopped off. He dies in hospital. The story is narrated by Will, the boyfriend (later husband) of Adam's sister Meghan, who is a rehabilitated forger of autographs and inscriptions in rare books. While I liked it, the writing style is odd, and we never get close to any of the characters - they remain two-dimensional. I almost gave up about a third of the way through, because I couldn't understand why the protagonist paid off Henry Slader. It made no sense at all to me, but as I continued and an inkling of the truth dawned on me, it began to be more believable. I failed to understand many of the decisions Will made and his justifications were spurious. By the end I had decided he was a psychopath, but it is hard to keep reading when your narrator is so difficult to sympathize with/relate to.

There was a bit too much of the "joys of forgery" to me - the first few times I was drawn in by the idea, but after a while I got bored. Even with the explanation at the end, I was a bit confused. How did Adam come to be in so much debt to Henry Slader? Why was Slader nervous the first time he and Will met? What was Slader's relationship with Atticus? What would Slader gain by attacking Will? Was he just plain mad too?

I did like the frequency with which it rained in County Kerry. ( )

I won a copy of this book from goodreads. The Forgers is an elegantly written murder mystery novel set in the world of rare books. Bradford Morrow's writing was beautiful - I rarely write down quotes from books but there were two that stuck with me. 'Guilt is unbecoming of the guilty' and 'It takes a lot of truth to tell a lie'. I didn't know it at the time but these quotes really apply to the main character, Will (whose name is only mentioned once in the entire book). I definitely recommend this book to anyone who enjoys mysteries and wants more than your typical light thriller. ( )

A good read. I'm not all that clever, but I sorted it out in the first pages. It was interesting to see how Morrow put it all together and nearly everything wrapped up nicely. ( )

The narrator-protagonist of Bradford Morrow’s The Forgers comes across as urbane, sophisticated, and very much in love. He is all of these things, but so much more. For at one time, this unnamed speaker was one of the world’s most expert forgers, specializing in letters and inscriptions by 19th Century literary lights, Arthur Conan Doyle in particular. Because of Mr. Morrow’s brilliant characterizations through this first-person voice, we see this man’s passion for his illicit craft, and we begin to understand his emotional attachment to it.

Mr. Morrow lays out his story with a surgeon’s skill. We bear with the main character through his tribulations and appreciate his devotion to his fiancée (later wife), who knows his background but returns his love fully. Tension builds from the pressure an extortionist exerts against him – this vile man knows of the hero’s past and tries to force him back into a life of crime, which the hero has avowedly given up because he wants to live on the straight and narrow in honor of his wife. These motives do honor to our erstwhile forger, and we want a good outcome for the couple.

I can testify to the author’s skill in building suspense – several times I had to put the book down because I was a little afraid of what might happen, or what the protagonist might stoop to. The gruesome climactic moment with his tormentor isn’t necessarily a surprise, but it’s treated brilliantly: the pacing, the personalities, all aspirations and hopes lead to this crescendo. It’s a very satisfying scene, albeit very brief. The nemesis comes across as truly maniacal, and blunderingly stupid.

This novel shines with craftsmanship. Mr. Morrow has rendered a highly atmospheric, tense thriller; it features a glimpse into the arcane book-collecting world and an unblinking look at the passion of its cognoscenti. When these passions lead to unsavory activity, we sink into skullduggery, paranoia, and at length, harrowing physical danger. It was a privilege to witness these gifts on display, and to have the opportunity to deepen my acquaintance with this brilliant writer. Highly recommended!

http://bassoprofundo1.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-forgers-by-bradford-morrow.html ( )

One will walk away from reading The Forgers with a much greater appreciation for paper and handwriting arts. For while the book is about Will and his effort to leave his life of crime in his past, it is also a loving homage to old and rare books, handwriting, and the printed page. Will’s love of calligraphy and his skill at forgery are sensuously described but there is also a deep-seated, almost obsessive, passion to it that many a bibliophile will recognize. This is the same passion that entices readers to inhale the unique aroma of novels, to worship at the bookstore altars and get more excited about meeting an author than about a movie star or musician. This exultation of all things handwritten or published makes one crave to put pen to paper oneself and actually write something versus texting or emailing it. Readers will find themselves better appreciating the books in their libraries, especially those autographed and personalized, and will take greater care of their personal collections. In spite of all of Will’s flaws, he makes one proud to be a bibliophile and collector of stationary or calligraphic elements.

Aside from the love affair with paper products, The Forgers is at heart a mystery. There is the mystery of Adam’s death, unsolved and growing colder by the minute. Then there is the mystery of the letters Will receives, their origins and ultimate aims. That the two are connected is never in doubt. Just what those connections are, however, remain unclear as Will struggles to solve his problems without betraying his wife and everything he holds dear.

Using Will as a narrator is a clever decision and one that has great impact on a reader’s appreciation of the story. Will never hides his past. One knows from the very beginning that he is a criminal, and he is even very honest about his wish to continue using his skills as a master forger. He is genuine in his love for Meghan and his desire for a fresh start. However, he is a reformed criminal, and no matter how much sympathy he generates within a reader, that fact never disappears. Readers must decide for themselves if he is as trustworthy as he appears to be. This is the true mystery of the story and one that captures and maintains a reader’s interest as it meanders through New York to Ireland and back again.

The Forgers will have mass appeal to mystery fans, but it is with bibliophiles where its true stardom will generate. The descriptions of the old and highly valued novels are entrancing and decadent, while Will’s nonchalance at “enhancing” first editions with his forgeries is simply infuriating. One marvels at his skills with old writing styles while abhorring the way he so callously disregards a book’s value. It is the type of novel in which readers will want to put it down in disgust at Will’s actions or desires but want to keep reading because his story is so compelling. The is-he-or-is-he-not-reliable question clings to every page, compounding a reader’s engagement and enhancing one’s reading pleasure. With plenty of ambiguity to foster many a heated discussion, The Forgers will make a great book club selection as well as a wonderful way to enjoy a weekend. ( )

Rare book collector, Adam Diehl, is found in his secluded home, his hands severed, his books and papers in disarray. Upon inspection, it appears he was a forger of long-dead author’s signatures, which would increase the price of already valuable books many times over. Among the suspects are his sister’s boyfriend, Will, who had been a prolific and talented forger and who is also our narrator.

Meghan, the deceased’s sister and protagonist’s girlfriend, is also in the book trade, as she owns an independent bookshop in Manhattan. She found out about Will’s little hobby along with the rest of the world and stuck by him as he paid his penance. She’s the best thing Will has ever had in his life, which is why, when someone starts threatening him, using Arthur Conan Doyle’s handwriting, no less, he keeps it a secret, in an effort to protect her.

He doesn’t know who’s sending the threats nor what they want nor why they want it, all he knows is he’ll do what needs doing in order to keep safe the one bit of happiness he has, and to keep the promise he’s made to Meghan, which is that he’d stay out of the the forging game. But someone is trying to force his hand.

On the surface this book should have been right up my street–it’s about the book world and I worked in independent bookshops for years–but it fell a little flat. The main character was a criminal, but not a very interesting one. He kept saying how solid his relationship was with Meghan and how they fell for one another at first sight, but I didn’t feel it. That could be because Will wasn’t a real person–at one point he talks about forgers also forging who they are and not being true humans, which I interpreted as a type of sociopathy. He definitely has that flat affect going on and not seeming to really engage with the world, only being concerned with protecting his own hide, as well as being close to only one person. I definitely don’t need to like a character–any of the characters of a novel, really–but they do need to be interesting. Will wasn’t.

Writing-wise it was better than most books out there, but it wasn’t up to par with Morrow’s The Diviner’s Tale, which was excellent. The text suffered from ‘had I known-itis’, which is where the narrator kept telling us that things were about to get a lot worse or that his bubble of happiness was to be short-lived. It’s something of which lesser authors are often guilty but I found it surprising in this author.

The plot was what kept me reading–needing to know who did it and what was going to happen next, which is why I read it in two days. It moved at a clip, which is what you want in a thriller. I didn’t know where things were going and, though I worked out some things before the end, I still didn’t know the particulars.

I would recommend this one to fans of John Dunning’s Bookman series and people interested in literary thrillers like Matthew Pearl’s books. 4/5 stars.

[I was given a free copy of this book to review.] ( )

Reformed [or perhaps not] forger Will is the egotistical narrator of this tale of rare manuscripts, book collectors, and forgers. He begins his story with the telling of a horrific attack on his girlfriend’s brother, one in which Adam Diehl sustains significant head trauma and both of his hands are severed at the wrist. While much of the story that follows revolves around the relationship between Adam’s sister Meghan and Will, intriguing glimpses into the forger’s past are revealed throughout the narration. When Will receives threatening blackmail letters, it becomes clear that someone knows far too much about Adam’s death and Will’s forgery-filled past. Can the unrepentant forger unmask the blackmailer and keep his past from ruining his future with the woman he loves?

Clues revealed in the course of the narration allow the astute reader to unmask the letter-sending blackmailer and effortlessly deduce the ending long before the denouement is revealed in the plot twist. The real pleasure in this novel is not in solving the mystery but in exploring its rather dark glimpse into this rarified book world. “The Forgers” may be light on mystery, but it’s a tour de force of language and imagery.

Recommended. ( )

Bradford Morrow's The Forgers (forthcoming from Mysterious Press) was a must-read for me, given my particular interests in both bibliomysteries and literary forgery. Plus, it got blurbed by both Joyce Carol Oates and Nick Basbanes, and that can't possibly be a very common combination.

Morrow's time as a book dealer and collector serves him well here; it always helps, when writing about the rare book trade, to know what you're talking about, and by and large Morrow ably captures the atmospherics of the trade ... including some of its darker aspects.

"They never found his hands." With that first line Morrow draws the reader into a tale of brutal murder, blackmail, forgery, and psychological terror, about which I'll spoil no more than that. This suspenseful tale, told by the classic unreliable narrator, makes for a thoroughly enjoyable and pleasantly creepy read.

It's not a perfect book: some early foreshadowing sort of gives the game away, a few of the characters don't feel quite fleshed out, and there are a few slow spots pacing-wise. But no matter - it's quite a good book and I'll recommend it without reservation. ( )

This book grabbed me from the first sentence. “They never found his hands.” After that – I practically inhaled this book – reading it on one day.

I am a reluctant fan of unreliable/anonymous narrators. It’s a tricky plot device to pull off – so when it is done well (as it is here) – it adds to the reader’s interest. When not done well – those are books that make me roll my eyes. In “The Forgers” – the only once named narrator is very unreliable yet the reader believes enough of what s/he is being told to be all in and to root against those who wish him harm. This character refers to himself as a “shadow man” several times – adding to the intrigue. “Usually endearments – none of which need to be listed here, as we are all guilt of the same maudlin sobriquets – dislodged my given name from our conversation, which was fine by me. Shadow men never like being called by name…”

Our narrator is a forger. Mostly, supposedly, reformed. This story takes place with his legal troubles in the past – and with a different scandal, the murder of his girlfriend Meghan’s brother (he of the forever missing hands) just having been discovered.

The reader is never really able to get an authentic sense of our protagonist. At times – he is very bitter about not being able to create his art – and the reader is sure he will lapse back into forging inscriptions and letters by famous authors. That he can’t keep saying no to the yearnings that call him to put pen to ink.

“…I incarcerated the word permanent because I think it is one of the most fraudulent words in the English language, and signifies an incontestable falsehood. Another part, however, suspected the letters and that unpublished manuscript fragment were simply too good to be true – much like the idea of permanence…”

At times, we are told and feel, the great love he has for Meghan – and it seems she will be enough of an incentive for him to stay the path of the straight and narrow. We do see him lie to her – but only at times that seem warranted by the increasingly disturbing circumstances that surround him.

“It takes a lot of truth to tell a lie. Truth must surround the pulsing heart of any lie for it to be convincing, believable. A pack of lives, like a house made from a pack of cards, will never remain standing. But a gracefully designed construction built on both visible and underlying truths had every chance of passing muster, of passing the test of time.”

Yet his life always circles around the temptation to forge. To “improve” rare books, to “add to” the history surrounding great authors and immortal literature. To put his mark, in his way, on history. And he meets another “shadow man” – who proves a great danger to his carefully scripted life. “We both were forgers as well as forgeries – we pretended to be real men, sophisticated, educated, entrepreneurial gentlemen, men who got away with what we set our minds to get away with. But as much as it pained me to admit it to myself, we were only the shadows of men of true substance.”

In this element of his character, I was constantly reminded of Humbert Humbert. A man who considers himself far above the rest, of refined tastes and of high intelligence...who just beneath the surface is one driven by the basest of instincts. A character the reader knows he or she should not like – but who captures the interest and refuses to let go.

The main character of “The Forgers” is himself a forgery – and remains so after he claims to have turned his life around. Just what details of his life turn out to be fake – are startling to say the least…and had me almost turn right back to “They never found his hands.” ( )

intriguing premise but ultimately not that satisfying... ( )

I read this book as an electronic advance reading copy (e-ARC) provided by Edelweiss, and I have sent comments to the publisher via that web site.

This book was terrible and is not recommended for libraries. Not only does it break the rule of "show, don't tell," the telling itself is poor quality. The unreliable narrator--who gives away the "twist" to the murder mystery early on in the book--skims over important story developments (blackmail, a wedding, a child, an international move) while lingering on dull details about literature that are meant to make him, and the author, appear sophisticated. No one is well characterized, with the female characters seeming especially wooden, and consequently I did not care about anyone. I skimmed through some of this short book, but it still felt interminable to me. ( )