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The Phantom of Manhattan is a 1999 novel by Frederick Forsyth, intended as a sequel to The Phantom of the Opera, (the Lloyd Webber musical, not the original book).

Forsyth's literary concept was that Gaston Leroux had recorded factual events but, in review, had apparently not checked his facts or viewed his sources with a critical eye. Accordingly, the novel can be read as both a tribute to the Lloyd Webber musical and a satire of period novels in the vein of George MacDonald Fraser's Flashman series (both a satire and exploration of Victorian history and stories). This choice to view Gaston Leroux's account of events as 'incorrect' has done nothing to endear the novel to the many fans of the original version. The book is divided into sixteen chapters, plus an epilogue, each told from the first-person point of view of one of the characters.

Plot Summary
The Phantom of Manhattan begins in a hospital room in Paris, where an ailing Madame Giry lies waiting for death, and reflecting upon the choices she's made in life. A priest, Father Sebastien, comes to take her last confession, and she tells him the story (first recounted by herself to Raoul in the musical) of how she saved the disfigured man who would later become the Phantom from a carnival freak show, and then goes further than the musical, talking about how she helped him escape the gendarmes and flee to America. She produces a letter from beneath her pillow, and begs him to take it to the man, Erik Mulheim as the Phantom is called in this version, now living in New York. After extracting his promise, she dies in peace.

The next section is the first of several from Erik's own point of view. He stands on the rooftop terrace of his penthouse home, and silently ponders on the past several years. After leaving France, he was secreted aboard an America-bound ship. The voyage was difficult for him, and he lived in constant fear of his cabinmates tossing him overboard. He had to jump ship when they reacher New York, because his scarred face would never have let him through the stringent Ellis Island that immigrants were subjected to. He stuggled to survive in his new world, working first cleaning fish on Gravesend Bay, and later as a clown selling postcards--the only occupation in which he could wear a mask. Along the way, he adopted as his assitant a young man named "Darius". Darius, highly-educated and originally from Malta, had also fled his homeland, after stabbing his tutor to death. He'd scraped a living as a male prostitute, before eventually stowing away on a ship to New York. Darius was well spoken, conscience-less, and as physically perfect as Erik was flawed: the perfect front man. Together, they became rich, Erik designing rides for the Coney Island parks, and Darius selling them. Eventually, enough money was emmassed for Erik to build 'his own' opera house.

The next two chapters follow the progress of the letter written by Madame Giry, as it makes its way to Erik. A man named Armand Dufour has been charged with its delivery, but is very unhappy with his assignment, spending several pages complaining about his dislike of the country that he's found himself in, and the lack of French-speaking officials. His search of immigration papers proved fruitless, as Erik never went through immigration. Dufour has resolved to give up, but decides to stop first at an Italian coffee shop he'd seen. The story is now picked up by Charles "Cholly" Bloom, a reporter, talking to his friends in a bar. He'd happened to drop in the same coffee shop as Dufour, for a chocolate sundae. He heard Dufour's speech, and assuming him to be French, greeted him, "Bon-Jewer Mon-Sewer" [sic]. Excited at the prospect of another French-speaker, Dufour began talking frenziedly, waving the letter about. Seeing Dufour's clear distress, Bloom take him to one of his aquaintances, Charlie Delmonico, a man from a European family, because "...over there they speak all the languages". After several minutes, Delmonico is able to explain Dufour's quest, and that he's looking for an 'Erik Mulheim'. Bloom is unfamiliar with the name, but Delmonico realises that there is an 'E.M. Corporation', with an 'E.M. Tower' in the city. Maybe "E.M." stands for "Erik Mulheim"? Bloom helps Dufour to the tower, and talk to someone upstairs, through a phone, telling the person that they had a letter for a "Mr. Mulheim", from a "Madame Giry". The man, Darius, tells them to take the elevator to the thirty-ninth floor, and then escorts them to a boardroom, at one end of which hangs a copy of The Laughing Cavalier by Frans Hals. Darius asks to see the letter, and Bloom takes a look around the room. He looks at the portrait again, and is shocked to see that the jovial face has changes to a scowling mask. He exclaims, but when everyone looks, it's changed back. They are escorted out, and Bloom takes the story to his editor, who just thinks he's been drinking on the job.

The next two chapters are short, one a hallucinatory conversation from Darius in an opium den, and the next an article in the New York Times. Darius spends his chapter talking with Mammon, his "god of gold". He tells about the letter, and the change that came over Erik when he read it. Prior to the letter, Erik had been a only a "sleeping" partner in the opera house project, while a Mr. Hammerstein (grandfather of the famous musical writer) did all the work. Now Erik was spending money on getting certain singers to come to the opera, including Dame Nellie Melba, and a French singer named Christine de Chagny. He'd also started writing an opera of his own. This all worries Darius, whose main want is more money to devote to Mammon. He is Erik's sole heir, and worries for his inheiritence. "Mammon" tells him not to worry, but that Darius should destroy any serious threat he might perceive. The New York Times article it merely about the new opera house, and the divas it might draw to its stage.