Literature / The Phantom of Manhattan

The Phantom of Manhattan is a 1999 novel by Frederick Forsyth that serves as a sequel to the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical adaptation of Gaston Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera. In The '90s, Lloyd Webber was developing a stage sequel to his biggest hit and he and Forsyth collaborated on a storyline for it. While plans for that show ultimately fell through, this novel has many story elements that would appear in Lloyd Webber's official sequel Love Never Dies in 2010, and Forsyth is given proper credit for those contributions.

Forsyth opens with a preface that examines the Direct Line to the Author approach of Leroux's work — and argues that he didn't properly research Erik's (the Phantom's) story, and that Lloyd Webber's version of it was much more plausible. From there, the story is told through the first-person viewpoints of different characters, switching with each chapter.

In 1906 New York City, thirteen years after the events of Phantom, Erik Mulheim is now a wildly successful businessman. This is partially thanks to Darius, a wicked young man who serves as his public face — he worships "Mammon the god of gold" and has turned Erik into a fellow believer. Erik is preparing to open the Manhattan Opera House to indulge his love of the form when he receives a letter from Madame Giry, the woman who helped him escape the authorities over a decade prior...

Soon, no less than Europe's greatest soprano, Christine de Chagny, is announced to be making her first visit to America. She will perform at the Manhattan Opera House, in a new work by an anonymous composer. Why has Erik dared to once again risk the rejection of the one woman he ever loved? And how will his dare affect those around them?

This novel contains examples of:

• Abusive Parents: Erik's father was this, physically abusing him and ultimately selling him to a freakshow. Erik was seven at the time.
• Accidental Murder: The death of Piangi in The Phantom of the Opera turns out to have been this — Erik just wanted to silence him when he took his place during Don Juan Triumphant, but accidentally killed him in the process of doing so.
• The Alcoholic: Erik's father — he spent the money he got from selling the boy to the freakshow on liquor.
• Almost Dead Guy: Madame Giry in Chapter One. She stays alive long enough to not only confess her part in Erik's story to a priest, but to give a notary the all-important letter, with payment and instructions on how to deliver it. She succumbs immediately afterward. Later, Christine de Chagny stays alive just long enough to tell Phillipe that Erik is his real father.
• Alternate Continuity: To The Phantom of the Opera due to Love Never Dies becoming the musical's official sequel.
• The American Civil War: The setting of the Phantom's new opera The Angel of Shiloh.
• Amusement Park: Erik designs attractions for no less than three successful amusement parks on Coney Island and even finances the last one. One later serves as an...
• Amusement Park of Doom: Steeplechase Park. It isn't usually this, but when fun master Taffy Jones is instructed to open the park in the off season for Christine and company's private visit, he's as puzzled as anyone by the goings-on. The mysterious pale man who volunteers to staff the toy shop in lieu of the (on vacation) usual clerk seems creepily interested in Pierre, and Taffy's attempt to guide Christine through the Hall of Mirrors is gummed up by an unknown force (guess who?) taking over its controls and trapping her in the center.
• Anonymous Benefactor: In the epilogue, it's established that Erik Mulheim becomes this to Father Joe, allowing him to open and maintain a home for the lost children of The City Narrows.
• Anyone Can Die: The book starts with Madame Giry's death, which isn't a huge shock, but Christine de Chagny's demise is a different story.
• As You Know: Most of Chapter Seven is taken up by a lengthy conversation between Pierre and Father Joe in which the latter recounts his entire backstory from childhood to the present moment in response to the former's questions. Given that Pierre has been tutored by Father Joe for over five years, it's curious that the boy isn't aware of at least some of this already, much less the fact that not everyone lives on a huge estate like his family does.
• Bandaged Face: In The Angel of Shiloh, the Southern Belle heroine's Union soldier fiance winds up with this when he is disfigured in an explosion. This allows Erik to understudy the role midway through the show, thus performing alongside his Christine again.
• Beauty Equals Goodness: Madame Giry cites people's belief in this trope as the reason Erik's life has been hard since the day he was born.
• Big Applesauce: Right there in the title.
• Big Sleep: Christine de Chagny goes out this way.
• Bittersweet Ending: Although Christine dies by accidentally taking the bullet meant for Pierre, most of the remaining characters have happy fates.
• Black Cloak / Ominous Opera Cape: Erik still has at least two, and wears one when he goes to observe Christine's arrival ceremony; he subsequently secretly gives it to Cholly Bloom for the purposes of Puddle-Covering Chivalry. Erik wears the other when he is finally reunited with her.
• Black Eyes of Evil: Darius.
• Boom Town: Coney Island is on the cusp of becoming an internationally famous tourist destination when Erik arrives in America.
• Can't Have Sex, Ever: As it turns out, Raoul, due to an old injury of his.
• Career-Ending Injury: A knee injury ended Meg's ballet career; she subsequently became Christine's maid.
• Character Development: Cholly Bloom learns to take his work much more seriously as a result of his encounters with Christine and company.
• Cheerful Child: Pierre de Chagny, who is not quite thirteen — a sunny and polite boy.
• Chekhov's Gun: Erik's Derringer — an actual gun — gets used in the climax.
• The Chessmaster: Erik's efforts to be with Christine again without revealing himself to the rest of the world require him to be this.
• Children Are Innocent: Played straight with Pierre.
• Child by Rape: Pierre de Chagny is this.
• Christianity is Catholic: The Girys and de Chagnys are Catholic (the latter even hired an Irish Priest as a tutor), and Darius was raised as Catholic but eventually rejected the faith and murdered his tutor. On the other hand, Taffy Jones notes "as a chapel going man I do not normally have much to do with Papist priests" when recounting his initial encounter with Father Joe.
• Circus Brat: While Erik's backstory is significantly different from that presented in the original Leroux novel, he is still this, acquiring his engineering and illusion skills from growing up with a carpenter father (abusive though he is) under the big top.
• The City Narrows: Both Erik and Father Joe regard the Lower East Side as this; Father Joe is particularly horrified to discover children have been forced into prostitution there.
• City of Adventure: Father Joe expects New York City to be this, and he proves to be right.
• Coincidence Magnet: It's by chance that Cholly Bloom meets Armand Dufour and gets involved in his quest to deliver Madame Giry's letter to Erik. When she receives the music box and is trying to figure out where it was sent from, it's Cholly who correctly guesses that it's Steeplechase Park because he once went there with a girl he was trying to impress and saw the toyshop during his visit. And it's Cholly who not only sees but claims a note that Christine throws away, which allows him to inform the others of Erik and Christine's meeting. Cholly, as a reporter, has his eyes continually peeled for opportunities to seize upon in his quest for stories, but all this is a bit much.
• Come to Gawk: Erik's life in the freakshow boiled down to this.
• Contrived Coincidence: Madame Giry only knows the Dark Secret because she not only knows Erik more personally than she let on to others before, but also attended to a teenaged Raoul after he was wounded by a pickpocket, and thus knows that he can't have sex.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Erik becomes one with the help of Darius, who is even more corrupt.
• Country Mouse: Father Joe holds on to the simple ways of his homeland even as he rises in status in the church (gradually making his way from Mullingar to Rome) and subsequently travels through the most luxurious cities of Europe as Pierre's tutor.
• Crosscast Role: Pierre is voiced by a woman in the full cast audiobook version.
• Curious as a Monkey: When Pierre receives the music box, it initially plays "Yankee Doodle Dandy", but he manages to inspect and figure out its inner workings — and thus discovers that it can play another song if set up correctly. Cholly, recounting this to his friends, quips "This kid probably understands motor-car engines."
• Cymbal Clanging Monkey: The Phantom sends the "Masquerade" music box to Christine's son Pierre to reveal his presence in the city and lure them to Steeplechase Park.
• Da Editor: Cholly Bloom works for one and when he first figures into the plot, he's in desperate need of a good story to please him.
• Dark Secret: It's kept by three people — Madame Giry, Christine, and Raoul — and is that Pierre is Erik's son, since he had sex with Christine (implied to be non-consensual) after he abducted her during Don Juan Triumphant.
• Dead Man Writing: Madame Giry's letter to Erik.
• Deathbed Confession: The first chapter, "The Confession of Antoinette Giry", has her revealing the true extent of her knowledge of/relationship with Erik to a priest.
• Demoted to Extra: Though he's frequently mentioned by the other characters, Raoul de Chagny has to attend to business in France and doesn't make it to New York City until after Erik and Christine's reunion. He only plays an active role in the story's climax as a result.
• Deus ex Machina: Father Joe admits afterward that the climax comes down to nothing short of a miracle, one he was praying for. He's right — there is absolutely no in-story reason for Pierre to stay with Erik instead of Raoul. It's supposed to be The Power of Love in action, but it assumes that he can automatically, unconditionally love his birth father, whom he's barely met, as soon as he's told who he is.
• Died in Your Arms Tonight: Christine de Chagny dies in the arms of her husband, Raoul.
• Dies Wide Open: At the end, Darius does this.
• Disguised in Drag: Played for Drama; Madame Giry helped Erik escape the Paris Opera House by disguising him (with a few costume pieces) as a fellow middle-aged woman fleeing the chaos with her.
• Dramatic Unmask: Pierre de Chagny gets the honor of unmasking Erik in the climactic scene.
• Easily-Overheard Conversation / Exact Eavesdropping: Applies to the two times that Erik and Christine talk with each other at length. The first time, in the Hall of Mirrors, they are overheard by both Taffy Jones and Darius (each in different parts of the building). The second time, in Battery Park, Cholly Bloom gets all the information he needs to understand exactly what's going on between them.
• The Edwardian Era: The story's temporal setting.
• Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: Darius.
• Emerging from the Shadows: Madame Giry describes Erik as doing this, from the back of the cage he was kept in, when they first encountered each other.
• Evil Tower of Ominousness: Most of the city's residents don't realize that E. M. Tower, the tallest building in New York City, is also this. Most of it is occupied by ordinary people, but the top two floors serve as both corporate headquarters and living quarters for Erik and Darius.
• Expanded Universe: To the stage musical; unusual in that it rewrites the original universe in order for the plot to work. Love Never Dies effectively killed any chance it had at being regarded as a canonical sequel.
• External Retcon: To Gaston Leroux's novel, since there can't be a sequel without Erik's death being removed from the original story. This is done in the introduction by explaining why Gaston Leroux's "sources" were unreliable and how events must have played out differently from how he described them. (For how Forsyth alters the events of the stage musical, see Rewrite below.)
• Fake Brit: In-universe, Taffy Jones, a Brooklyn native who affects a Welsh accent (learned from his immigrant father) as Steeplechase Park's fun master because "the visitors find [it] so charming". He doesn't use it when he's off the job.
• Fan Nickname: In-universe, Christine de Chagny is known as "La Divina" in Italy.
• Featureless Plane of Disembodied Dialogue: Once the priest arrives to take Madame Giry's final confession, Chapter One becomes this — which wouldn't be a problem if two other characters didn't join the conversation at chapter's end. (It's definitely easier to follow in the full cast audiobook version.)
• First-Person Smartass: Cholly Bloom — he is recounting his adventures to his buddies over drinks in Chapters Four and Nine. He's a lot more serious 40+ years later in Chapter Sixteen, but his casual sense of humor still turns up from time to time.
• Foil: Father Joe (a humble and charitable man of the cloth) to Darius (a ruthless money-worshipper). Darius is also a foil to pure-hearted Pierre — the former is described by Mammon as Erik's "adopted son"; the latter is his actual son.
• French Jerk: Chapter Four is told from French notary Armand Dufour's point of view; his narration alternates between detailing his seemingly futile quest to deliver Madame Giry's letter and complaining about how lousy New York City (and the United States in general) is compared to his home country.
• God Is Good: Chapter Thirteen boils down to this point, as Father Joe prays and converses with God about Erik, the poor children in New York City, etc.
• Go into the Light: As she dies, Madame Giry tells the others she is headed through a tunnel towards an arch, beyond which lies light and the spirit of her first love...
• Good Parents: Christine and Raoul to Pierre; even though she has her opera career to pursue and he is often absent due to managing his estates (this is why they hired a tutor), they clearly love the boy and have taken pains to make sure he is raised well.
• Good Samaritan: Madame Giry was this to Erik — freeing him from the carnival, letting him stay at her flat as he recovered, helping him find a place to hide out in the opera house, and finally rescuing him from the authorities. She was also, thanks to Contrived Coincidence, this to Raoul when he was this trope, trying to stop a thief who accosted a young woman and ending up wounded for his trouble.
• Graceful Ladies Like Purple: Christine wears a "plum velvet" cloak to Steeplechase Park.
• Groin Attack: Happened to Raoul de Chagny in the backstory.
• Hall of Mirrors: Erik and Christine have their reunion in one at Steeplechase Park.
• Happily Married: Christine and Raoul.
• Heel–Face Turn: The ending hinges on this happening to Erik Mulheim.
• Helping Would Be Killstealing: God allows humankind to sin and the innocent to suffer so as not to undermine the free will he granted His creation (see Inherent in the System below).
• Historical Domain Character: Quite a few have minor roles and cameos; the most important is Oscar Hammerstein, who built the short-lived Real Life Manhattan Opera House — which Erik secretly finances. Chapter Fifteen is a society column that naturally discusses all the celebrities who appear at the afterparty of Christine's American opera debut.
• I Kiss Your Hand: Oscar Hammerstein kisses Christine's hand upon her arrival in America; the reporter recounting this in Chapter Eight notes that this is "an Old World gesture seen with increasing rarity in our society". Teddy Roosevelt kisses her hand during The Angel of Shiloh's afterparty.
• The Illegal: Both Erik and Darius; since both are wanted criminals (and the former is also deformed), attempting to enter the United States legally would result in deportation to their home countries. This is why Armand Dufour, the notary Madame Giry sends to deliver the letter to Erik, almost fails to do so — she assumes that Erik entered the country legally and left a paper trail for Dufour to follow.
• Impractically Fancy Outfit: Taffy Jones, "the official fun master [barker] of Steeplechase Park", recounts in his journal that he tried to pursue Darius when he saw him eavesdropping on Erik and Christine's reunion, but he had to wear his elaborate suit to greet Christine's party properly and "In my great clumsy extralong fun master's boots, running was out of the question."
• Infodump: In the final chapter, the lecture given by Cholly (now Professor Charles) Bloom forty-plus years later includes a summary of most of the plot as seen from his viewpoint — providing little new information — before revealing what happened to him and the other major characters not long afterward.
• Inherent in the System: God's explanation to Father Joe as to why He allows atrocities to happen — He gave humanity free will, and many humans choose to be evil instead of good. "I never gave Man a guarantee of perfection, only the chance of it. That was the whole point of it all."
• In the Back: This is intended as Pierre de Chagny's fate, but instead Darius's bullet accidentally hits Christine in the back when she embraces her son.
• Intrepid Reporter: Cholly Bloom.
• Irish Priest: Joseph Kilfoyle, aka "Father Joe", Pierre's tutor.
• It Seemed Trivial: A lot of grief would be spared if Taffy Jones shared his journal with others, and in the same way Cholly's greatest failure comes about due to his not realizing what is really going on between Christine, Erik, and so on. That said, he keeps and remembers two seemingly trivial items that figure into the climax: a celluloid cuff and Erik's note to Christine.
• It Will Never Catch On: Twice.
  • Armand Dufour can't believe that the U.S. has any potential of becoming a great country, given all the poor immigrants it's accepting and its uncultured ways...
  • Society columnist Amy Fontaine notes that playwright/actor D.W. Griffith, an attendee at the Angel of Shiloh afterparty, is going into the infant business of "biographs" (films); she dismisses the concept of the biographs as "crazy-sounding".
• Karmic Jackpot: Cholly sees managing to wrangle an exclusive interview with Christine de Chagny in the wake of his Puddle-Covering Chivalry as this.
• The Kindnapper: Madame Giry is a Heroic Kindnapper. She outright says she "stole" Erik from the carnival freak show due to her horror at how he was being treated — sneaking onto the grounds after dark with bolt cutters to free him from his cage and taking him home with her. She has wrestled with guilt over this act, and her later efforts to protect him, ever since.
• The Law of Conservation of Detail: Ignored more than once. Madame Giry reflects on her life as a ballerina and then ballet mistress before the priest arrives for her confession, with the only narrative payoff being the details of Meg's Career-Ending Injury and Giry's first lover's name as she goes into the light. Chapter Seven opens with Father Joe giving Pierre a Latin lesson and moves on to a detailed discussion of his childhood and career in the church up through becoming the boy's tutor (see As You Know above). A shorter example comes with Taffy Jones: does the reader need to know about the fairground barker's life at home and retirement plans?
• Loony Fan: Supposedly responsible for Christine's death; in truth, Darius was just loony.
• Love Dodecahedron: Erik loves Christine who loves Raoul. And Father Joe also desires Christine, but knows he must keep to his vows so he doesn't let anyone but God know.
• Love Redeems: Specifically, the love between a father and son.
• Madwoman in the Attic: Erik, of course, exiled himself to the cellars of the Paris Opera House — but that was only after living with Madame Giry and Meg proved unworkable: he was frightened of any and all visitors and always hid himself away when anyone came to call.
• Money, Dear Boy: In-universe, Dame Nellie Melba's motivation to perform at the Manhattan Opera House is only to claim the extravagant salary she is promised, a deliberate contrast to Christine deciding she will do it for the art instead (see above).
• Monster Clown: During his con artist years on Coney Island, Erik disguises himself as a clown (using a mask rather than makeup for his face) to go among others in daylight.
• Most Writers Are Adults: Inverted in that, most of the time, Pierre acts significantly younger than a boy who's 12-going-on-13. Aside from his precocious knowledge of mechanical devices, his speech and mannerisms are more akin to a boy of 8 or 9, and he doesn't seem aware of the fact that most people don't live the pampered life he does (see As You Know above), despite his having traveled across Europe with his mother and getting an education from a tutor.
• The Muse: Christine is still this to Erik. Once he gets that letter, he begins writing music — a whole opera — for the first time in over a decade.
• Muse Abuse: The Angel of Shiloh is clearly Erik working out his relationship issues through a new vehicle for his beloved Christine. A Southern Belle is in love with Regan, a Northerner who ends up a disfigured, wanted Union soldier, while a Southern general who has long pined for her not only tries to convince her to break off their engagement in the heat of the war, telling her that Regan must have died by now, but also intends to have him caught and executed for the ambushes he's led when it turns out he's still alive. However, the Raoul equivalent is portrayed as a fundamentally good man, and the show ends with Regan breaking off his engagement to the heroine as she helps him escape the Southern arm of the law. He does this by returning his engagement band to her, paralleling Christine returning the Phantom's ring to him at the end of The Phantom of the Opera (and Foreshadowing Raoul giving his wedding ring to Pierre upon Christine's death, saying it should be Erik's). In addition, the general's young aide is a role that ends up filled by Pierre.
• My Greatest Failure: For reporter Cholly Bloom, it's not figuring out what's going on in time to prevent the confrontation that leaves Christine dead; years later, he tells his journalism students that a key to being a great journalist is to understand what they are witnessing and reporting upon, and that this experience taught him the importance of doing so.
• Never Be Hurt Again: Erik is almost killed by thieves horrified by his unmasked face during his con artist days on Coney Island; so "no one would ever hurt me again and get away with it", he arms himself with a gun from that point onward. When Darius accidentally kills Christine, Erik immediately shoots him dead.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Raoul de Chagny's backstory turns out to have an example of this. In trying to stop a thief, he ended up wounded in a way that means he Can't Have Sex, Ever.
• Obviously Evil: Darius. Everyone save for Erik is instantly uncomfortable with him when they meet him — especially Father Joe. He has Black Eyes of Evil to go with his black hair, pale-to-the-point-of-white skin, and black clothing, and is proud of his unfettered ways in the pursuit of money. Erik is the only person who really knows him in America and is easily swayed by him into becoming similarly ruthless. But even he sees nothing to like about Darius; the relationship between the two men is built only on their mutual dependence upon each other — Erik needs Darius to carry out his moneymaking schemes, and Darius needs Erik to come up with the schemes in the first place.
• Oireland: Father Joe is from here, as discussed in Chapter Seven: He grew up in Mullingar as part of a poor-but-large-and-loving farm family that lived on potatoes, milk, and beets. He became a Catholic priest, and from there Pierre's good-natured but firm tutor and mentor. (The Phantom Reviewer, an internet critic who reviews Phantom-related media, derisively nicknamed this character "Irish O'Stereotype".)
• Ominous Music Box Tune: "Masquerade".
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Cholly (Charles) Bloom, though years later he goes by his real name as a professor. It's never said whether Taffy Jones is a case of this or not.
• Opium Den: Darius regularly goes to "The House of Hashish"; while he's in his drug-induced trances, he's able to speak with Mammon.
• The Power of Love: Father Joe's conversation with God reveals that Erik can be redeemed by "another and a greater love" than Christine, who cannot return his love for her. That other turns out to be Pierre, his son.
• Pretty in Mink: Christine arrives in America at the end of November, so she wears a mink-trimmed coat and hat at her welcoming ceremony.
• Pretty Little Headshots: In the climax, Erik shooting Darius results in one of these.
• Produce Pelting: Erik had to suffer being pelted with rotten fruit and worse in the freakshow. As far as Madame Giry knows, the former was the only food he got each day.
• Proper Lady: Christine de Chagny, once The Ingenue, is the epitome of this in 1906 — and everyone loves her for it.
• Puddle-Covering Chivalry: As Christine approaches her carriage upon arriving in New York, there turns out to be a puddle in the way. Cholly Bloom is observing this when he suddenly has a cape shoved into his hands (an Ominous Opera Cape, to be exact...), and having read about this trope, he spreads it over the puddle for her to cross. This act gets the reporter into Christine's good graces and she grants him an interview later that day.
• Rags to Riches: Erik and Darius.
• The Reveal: What does Madame Giry's letter reveal? That Raoul could never have children due to an old injury...meaning that the Phantom, who raped Christine after abducting her, is Pierre's father. Related tropes include Give the Baby a Father and First Parent Wins.
• Revenge: N.Y.C.'s upper crust refused Erik a private box at the Metropolitan Opera when he would not appear for an interview — so he secretly funds the construction and operation of the Manhattan Opera House to give it the wherewithal to outdo the Met and its patrons. (What Erik doesn't know is that Darius was the one who made sure he couldn't get a box, because he wants him to focus on making money.)
• Rewrite: Besides tossing out Leroux's novel in favor of Lloyd Webber's adaptation of it as the basis for the plot, the two murders the Phantom commits in the musical are revealed by Madame Giry to have been a suicide and an accident, respectively. Other changes include adding the detail that it took several hours for Raoul to reach Christine in the Phantom's lair, and that it was only a coincidence the authorities were able to react so quickly to Piangi's death and Christine's kidnapping. Finally, the musical is set in 1881-82, but this novel changes that to 1892-93.
• The Rival
  • Erik refers to the Manhattan Opera House as "the rival that will set the snobby Metropolitan by the ears."
  • Christine de Chagny is this to Real Life Australian opera performer Dame Nellie Melba, according to the in-story newspaper articles/columns. Even Erik initially plans to launch the Manhattan Opera House with a production featuring Nellie — but then he gets that letter...
• Satan: Darius doesn't realize it (much less Erik) — or perhaps he just doesn't care if he does — but the god Mammon, whom he talks to in hashish-induced trances, is actually this.
• Scrapbook Story: Of the 16 chapters, four are newspaper columns, one is from a diary, and one is from a journal.
• Self-Made Man: Once Madame Giry freed young Erik from the carnival, nursed him back to health, and brought him to the opera house, he managed to educate himself and construct his underground hideout completely on his own, using his Circus Brat knowledge. He similarly pulls himself up by his bootstraps once he gets to America, albeit with Darius providing immoral support and serving as his public face.
• Show Within a Show: The Angel of Shiloh.
• Sorry That I'm Dying: Christine de Chagny's last words to her husband — "I'm so sorry, my darling" — doubles as asking penance for revealing to Pierre that Erik is his real father.
• Southern Belle: Christine's character in The Angel of Shiloh.
• Spooky Painting: Erik secretly observes visitors to the E.M. Corporation's office from behind a reproduction of the painting The Laughing Cavalier. Going beyond the Portrait Painting Peephole approach, Cholly Bloom actually sees Erik's masked face in the place of the portrait's via a reflection and is startled — but when he turns around to point it out, it's back to normal.
• Stalker with a Crush: Erik becomes this for Christine again once he gets Madame Giry's letter, arranging events from behind the scenes to reach the point where he can reveal himself to her once more — in private.
• Star-Crossed Lovers: The lovers in The Angel of Shiloh — she's from the South, he's from the North...
• The Starscream: Darius. He is in line to inherit all Erik has and is only kept from speeding up the process by Mammon's orders, which do stipulate that if anything threatens this inheritance, Darius must eliminate it at once.
• Stern Teacher: Father Joe to Pierre, though he has a sense of humor and is well-liked by the boy. (As Good Parents, Christine and Raoul knew he needed someone to keep him in line and give him a proper education, since he lives on the road.)
• Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome: Madame Giry dies of a terminal illness in the opening chapter, but it has been almost 13 years since the events of Phantom (she's 58 when she succumbs), and she sets up the rest of the story with her letter before doing so.
• Switching P.O.V.: Each chapter is narrated/reported by or is a conversation featuring a different character. Several get to handle multiple chapters, but never in a row.
• Sympathetic Murderer: Erik Mulheim becomes one at the end when he shoots Darius dead after Christine is killed. As this continuity establishes he'd never intentionally killed before, he doesn't qualify as this trope until this moment.
• Tampering with Food and Drink: Erik becomes a millionaire on Coney Island by taking his initial fortune from his amusement park ventures and betting it on two boxing matches. He ensures his man will win each time by having Darius swap out the water bottle the opponent drinks from between rounds for a sedative-laced substitute. Much later, Erik also tampers with the throat spray the tenor playing Regan in The Angel of Shiloh uses, so he can be onstage alongside Christine again.
• Teens Are Monsters: Darius was born in Malta but fled when he murdered his tutor, as (according to Erik) he was "driven to rage by the endless penances inflicted on him by priests". By the time he makes it to America at the age of 17, he is a devout worshipper of Mammon.
• This Is Going to Be Huge: Erik sees the Manhattan Opera House as grand enough to bring down the Metropolitan Opera House, and the review of The Angel of Shiloh calls it the superior venue of the two — but as the epilogue notes, the Met came out the victor in that battle.
• Title Drop: It's dropped by Cholly in Chapters Four and Sixteen and by Gaylord Spriggs in Chapter Six.
• To Be Lawful or Good:
  • Madame Giry has long struggled with guilt over stealing the abused Erik from the carnival and later hiding him from the authorities and finally sending him off to America, rather than turning him over to a mob out for blood or police who would imprison him, after the events of Phantom. The priest she gives her final confession to doesn't think the former was a sin in God's eyes, but that the latter was.
  • The heroine's climactic problem in The Angel of Shiloh is this: Should she tell the Southern army officers that her now-disfigured fiance is the wanted leader of Regan's Raiders ("who have carried out devastating ambushes behind the lines") and doom him to execution, or keep quiet and allow him to be returned to the North with his fellow casualties? She chooses to do the latter with the rationalization that he is no longer a threat to them. Cholly Bloom makes a similar decision at the end, choosing not to report what he knows about Christine's death for Erik's sake.
• Tragic Dream: Erik long ago accepted that his dream of Christine reciprocating his obsessive love for her was this and put it behind him, but what he learns from Madame Giry's letter makes him decide to pursue it again — though this time he is better equipped to handle rejection, provided she leaves him their son.
• The Unfettered: Darius, in his pursuit of wealth, is this, and has encouraged Erik to follow in his footsteps.
• Unrequited Love Lasts Forever: Erik hasn't tried to find another woman to love and be loved by since losing Christine to Raoul, devoting himself to making money instead.
• Vampire Vords: Mammon speaks with this accent in the audiobook version. He isn't a vampire but he is an evil supernatural entity.
• Vice City: Coney Island, where Erik and Darius amass the seed money for their eventual fortune through a variety of cons. It's relatively safe for visitors to the funfairs and amusement parks (including families), but they can still be scammed out of their money.
• Villain Protagonist: Erik.
• War Is Hell: A major theme in The Angel of Shiloh, as it rips lives apart on and off the battlefield. The heroine who becomes a volunteer nurse tending to casualties of the Battle of Shiloh (one of whom is her now-disfigured fiance) has arias titled "Why Must These Young Men Die?" and "Ah, Cruel War", the latter serving as the show's finale.
• When It All Began: Madame Giry "stealing" Erik from the fair.
• "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: The surviving major characters' fates are briefly described in the third person to close out the book.
• White Mask of Doom: Erik still has his.
• Wicked Cultured: Erik — his only indulgence as a millionaire is sating his love of opera to the point of financing the Manhattan Opera House and arranging for only the best talents to perform there. Averted with Darius, who has no interest in anything besides money and sees art as a waste.
• Would Hurt a Child: Worshipping Mammon requires a willingness to do this; as Erik explains, "There is no widow, no child, no pauper wretch who cannot be crushed a little more for a few extra granules of the precious metal that so pleases the Master." As such, Darius is ready to murder Pierre once it becomes clear he's Erik's son.
• The X of Y: All of the chapter titles follow this naming convention, as does Erik's new opera The Angel of Shiloh.

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