The Darlings

Alger's debut tracks a single week in the fortunes, or, rather, misfortunes, of the Darlings, a pedigreed Manhattan family whose lavish lifestyle depends on the positive performance of Delphic, their financial investment firm. All goes awry when Morty Reis, a family friend and Delphic's most successful fund manager, tosses himself off the Tappan Zee Bridge. Unfortunately for son-in-law Paul Ross, this terrible event happens around the time of his signing on as the firm's legal counsel and the receipt of pointed phone calls from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). He begins to suspect that Morty had engaged in fraudulent schemes that will bring down the family. Will Paul be pulled into the moral quagmire of a family cover-up, extricate himself by cooperating with the SEC and thereby lose his lovely wife, or be hung out to dry by the Darlings as the scapegoat? Throughout the novel, Alger introduces us to flawed but sympathetically drawn characters and depicts socialite parties, luscious dinners, exquisite clothes, and holidays in the Hamptons.