The Lions of Fifth Avenue

Fiona Davis’s The Lions of Fifth Avenue, published in 2020, is a historical mystery novel. It occupies a unique niche—the literary heist genre. While delving into the minutiae of early-20th-century architecture and the world of rare book theft, the novel, at its heart, is about the power of books to link the past to the present and  using this connection to enlighten and inspire. Davis, a graduate of the Columbia University School of Journalism, writes historical fiction with a reporter’s eye for accuracy. The Lions of Fifth Avenue was a Good Morning America Book Club selection.

This guide is based on the 2021 Dutton paperback edition.

Content Warning: The Lions of Fifth Avenue includes a brief scene of violence against a child and mentions a death by suicide.

Plot Summary

In 1913, Laura Lyons and her husband Jack take up residence in the New York Public Library where Jack has recently been hired as superintendent. Laura informs him that she has been accepted to the Columbia University School of Journalism. Jack is supportive, but he is also an aspiring novelist and believes the care of their children, Pearl and Jack, should fall to her while he works on his manuscript. After winning a scholarship, Laura attends classes and begins writing about issues other than tea parties and political wives. While investigating poverty among Manhattan’s immigrant population, she encounters Dr. Amelia Potter, a former college classmate and doctor with a city-funded program to bring pediatric care to poor mothers. Amelia leads her into a world of radical gender politics as women from around the country fight for political and sexual equality.

Meanwhile, in 1993, Sadie Donovan is appointed curator of the New York Public Library’s Berg Collection and is tasked with overseeing an important new exhibit of the Collection’s artifacts. However, a wave of book thefts threatens to derail her career and shroud the library in bad publicity. She teams up with Nick Adriano, a security consultant, to investigate the crimes. Sadie, the granddaughter of Laura Lyons, is reluctant to reveal her familial connection since Lyons, now regarded as a feminist icon and essayist, was implicated in a book theft 80 years ago. When Sadie’s mother, Pearl, dies, she drops hints of dark, unrevealed secrets, secrets that may link the past thefts to the current ones.

Laura is drawn into the orbit of “radical” feminists, members of the Heterodoxy Club in whose passion and idealism she sees potential for her master’s thesis. The rules of the club, however, prohibit Laura from writing about its members, so she attends merely as an interested observer. She is captivated by the audacity and fearlessness of these women, particularly Amelia, with whom she develops a romantic relationship. She decides to write her thesis about the club and the nascent feminist movement despite the club’s rules, as the thesis will never be published. Meanwhile, Jack’s manuscript has been accepted by a literary agent, and as he works feverishly on edits and Laura spends more and more time with Amelia, the children are neglected, especially Harry who begins skipping school and hanging out with a gang of delinquent boys led by Red Paddy.

In 1993, Sadie and Nick canvass bookstores looking for stolen books. Sadie, posing as a wealthy buyer, locates the book at a rare book shop downtown, and Nick and the police swoop in and arrest the owner, but he has only scant details of the buyer. Sadie and Nick develop romantic feelings for each other, but their relationship is threatened when Sadie, pursuing the unseen thief, picks up a stolen book that was dropped, and Nick and her boss, Dr. Hooper, assume she is the culprit. Despite the library’s security protocols, the thefts continue, and Sadie, now on temporary leave, is determined to solve the mystery. Her obsession with the stolen books takes a backseat, however, when her brother, Lonnie, calls to report his daughter, Valentina, is missing.

Laura submits her thesis, but her advisor, Dr. Wakeman, fails her due to excessive editorializing; but later, an edited version of her thesis appears in The New York World under Wakeman’s byline. It casts the Heterodoxy Club in a negative light, and its members blame Laura. She is banished from the meetings, and Amelia breaks up with her. Laura is devastated, but when Harry falls ill with a bout of typhoid, she resolves to devote more time to her family. As Harry recovers, Laura discovers his delinquency and tries to steer him back on course. However, one evening, Amelia stops by the library, leaving a thinly veiled love note for Laura inside a feminist novel, and Jack finds it. Enraged at her betrayal, he becomes physical. Harry witnesses it and throws Jack’s manuscript in the fireplace, before fleeing to the streets. Jack orders his son left outside for the night, to teach him a “lesson,” but the following morning, Jack doesn’t return. That night, Laura discovers the stolen Tamerlane hidden in a dumbwaiter with a pile of cash. Harry, under orders from Red Paddy, has been stealing books and selling them for survival money. Jack, despondent over his destroyed manuscript and wanting to protect his son from criminal prosecution, dies by hanging and leaves a note implicating himself in the thefts.

As the exhibition draws near, Sadie realizes the thief is Robin, Valentina’s babysitter, who has been eavesdropping on Sadie and Lonnie’s conversations and knows where to find the most valuable manuscripts. When Robin goes to the library one night, Valentina follows and becomes trapped inside after closing time. After searching the old library apartment—now used for storage—Sadie and Nick chip away at a false wall to reach the old dumbwaiter. There, they find Tamerlane, where Harry left it 80 years ago. Robin is arrested, and Sadie pleads for a harsher sentence. After the trial, Sadie sees an old man standing in the courtroom—her Uncle Harry, who has been living in Massachusetts since he escaped Red Paddy’s gang.

Sadie is aware from her meetings with Mrs. Quinn, Laura’s old housekeeper in London, of a final note, one that wasn’t destroyed with the rest of Laura’s work. She discovers the note hidden inside Laura’s old walking stick—which confirms Harry’s guilt and exonerates Jack—and incorporates it into the final exhibit. The Berg exhibit is a cultural and financial success, and Sadie, newly empowered, resolves to take a chance on love and pursues Nick.

Meanwhile, Laura searches desperately for Harry, who’s been missing for months. She finally finds him in a squalid basement with Red Paddy’s gang. She tries to convince him to come home, but he is too beset with guilt and anger to rejoin the family. Realizing Harry has drifted beyond her reach, Laura moves to London with Pearl where she and Amelia start fresh. There, she becomes the independent woman she has always dreamed of. She and Amelia are killed in a German bombing raid over London during World War II.