Most people have heard of the Rockefellers, the Vanderbilts and the Carnegies. But William Andrews Clark, who amassed a fortune even greater than these wealthy families, seems to be little mentioned among these Gilded Age elite. That is, until his daughter, Hugette Clark, died in the spring of 2011 at the age of 104 and left behind a massive fortune and a contested will.

THE PHANTOM OF FIFTH AVENUE is the comprehensive retelling of the Clark family's story, beginning with its patriarch, William Andrews Clark who made his fortune from copper mines in Butte, Montana. Clark, who would also become a U.S. Senator, married Katherine Stauffer and together they had four children that survived to adulthood. Katherine died in 1893 of Typhoid and Clark eventually remarried Anna La Chapelle, who was 39 years his junior. Clark and Chapelle had two daughters, Andree and Hugette. By all accounts Hugette had a happy and very privileged childhood. The Clark family of four lived together in their mansion on Fifth Avenue and vacationed often in Paris, Hawaii and on their twenty-three acre estate in Santa Barbara, California.

One of the most interesting aspects of the book is Hugette's relationship with men. In 1928, at the age of 22, Hugette married her father's accountant's son, William Gower. However, the marriage only lasted 9 months and was a popular topic in the tabloids. Meryl Gordon also hints at a very flirtatious relationship that Hugette had with her art instructor, Tade Styka but this never amounted to any type of an intimate relationship. Hugette seems to also have been courted by Etienne de Villermont, an old family friend but their time together did not end in a marriage either. It seems that Hugette could never really be sure which suitors had genuine love and affection for her and which ones were just after her money. So she decided to stay single for most of her life.

Hugette's relationships with men and her attitude towards them also reflect how she lived the other aspects of her life. She had enough money to do what she wanted pretty much all of the time. She collected antique French porcelain dolls, she amassed an impressive collection of French impressionist art and she gave millions of dollars in gifts to her caretakers. When she was admitted to the hospital in the 1990's to treat a severe case of melanoma, she decided that she liked the hospital surroundings and she paid the hospital an outrageous amount of money so that she could make her room there her permanent home. She was the kind of person that, because of her massive fortune, she was not used to hearing the word no.

Her private nurse, Hadassah Peri, was required to work 12 hour shifts, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Even when Peri was at home, she would talk to Hugette on the phone, do her laundry and cook meals for her.

When Hugette died at the age of 104 she left behind an outrageous fortune which included precious pieces of artwork, a sprawling 42 room apartment on Fifth Avenue, a mansion in Santa Barbara, California and another mansion in New Canaan, Connecticut. She wanted most of her fortune to go to her caretakers and she wanted the California mansion to be established as an art foundation. However, her Clark relatives from her father's first marriage, with whom she had not had any contact in decades, contested the will and decided that her caretakers took advantage of the old woman in her twilight years.

Meryl Gordan has done an exhaustive job of researching the interesting life of Hugette Clark and battle that ensued after her death. THE PHANTOM OF FIFTH AVENUE is one of those rare books that keeps you thinking about it long after you have finished reading the last page.