THE LAST DAYS OF NIGHT

By Graham Moore

368 pp. Random House. $28.

What makes a fictional story feel true and a true story feel fictional? This is a question I considered often while reading “The Last Days of Night,” a novel by Graham Moore, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of “The Imitation Game” and author of the 2010 novel “The Sherlockian.” His new book is a thriller built around the so-called electricity wars fought over a century ago between the rival inventors Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse. Specifically, it explores Edison’s attempts to drive Westinghouse (and his superior A/C current) out of business. Our way into the tale is the real-life lawyer Paul Cravath, a prodigy in his mid-20s hired by Westinghouse to defend his growing empire from Edison’s attack.

Cravath arrives as an underdog on the very first page. Hurrying to a meeting with Edison, he witnesses the horrific electrocution of a workman hanging power lines. Electricity, we are told, is a mixed blessing. Encountering the great inventor, Cravath is intimidated by Edison, who appears here as a ­single-minded bully: “ ‘If you think you can stop me,’ Edison said softly, ‘go ahead and try. But you’ll have to do it in the dark.’ ”

Along the way, Cravath meets a high-­society chanteuse named Agnes Huntington (also a real person), who falls quickly into the role of his co-conspirator. Also on the scene are two other giants of the time, Nikola Tesla and J.P. Morgan, who play important, if very different, roles in the multifronted battle. The novel’s action takes place against a backdrop rich with period detail. The late 1800s was a time when magical thinking was being replaced by wonder at the technological possibilities of the future, and Moore’s satisfying romp draws on this shift as it builds to an unexpected (if you don’t know the history) conclusion.

The novel ends with an eight-page note from the author laying out in great detail exactly which parts of the novel happened as described and which did not. Out of necessity, the time frame has been compressed, the chronology of real events fudged and some incidents invented from whole cloth. None of this is surprising. “The Last Days of Night” is, after all, a work of fiction. And yet knowing that the truth has been embroidered doesn’t precisely explain the lack of “truthiness” (to quote Stephen Colbert) I felt while reading Moore’s book.