Phantom of Manhattan

New York, 1906. More than a decade after fleeing the Paris Opera, the disfigured Erik has become a secretive millionaire under the name Erik Muhlheim. His rise from Coney Island attractions to Wall Street wealth allows him to finance a rival opera house with Oscar Hammerstein, but money and influence have not removed his isolation. A final message from Madame Giry renews his obsession with Christine de Chagny, now a celebrated European soprano.

Christine arrives in Manhattan with her husband Raoul and their son Pierre, and Erik plans a performance that will bring her into the theatre he has created. His hope of discovering the truth about Pierre conflicts with the ambitions of Darius, who expects to inherit Erik’s fortune. Forsyth places the Gothic romance among the spectacle and commerce of turn-of-the-century New York, incorporating period figures such as Theodore Roosevelt while continuing the fictional legend of the Phantom of the Opera.