Rule of Civility by Amor Towles

This is written by the author of A Gentleman From Moscow, which I loved, and The Lincoln Highway, which I have mixed feelings about but ultimately liked. The later has some moral struggles within it that are shared with this, an earlier book, and may be the reason that I like the writer. The setting is 1938 New York City--at the end of the Depression and before WWII and before the sharp lines between social classes have started to blur. Katey Kontent, recently orphaned and born of Russian immigrant parents, is our narrator and she is a keen observer of the people around her. She is well read, well spoken and a bit unlucky in love--Think a female version of Nick Carraway. Through her eyes we meet Tinker Grey, who she falls for and then reconsiders her choice. As fortunes, friendships and reputations burn out and rise once again, these New Yorkers reveal their various degrees of moral compromise, and as they change, so too do their perspectives on each other. This is a book that I warmed to as I read it, and think about in the aftermath more often than usual.