@Mary13 , since this thread is not officially closed yet, and I just finished both A Gentleman in Moscow and Rules of Civility … I’m poking my head in to say your guess about the crossover character was spot on:
“I didn’t read Rules of Civility, but only Richard Vanderwhile makes sense to me as a crossover character. Anyone read the book? How was it? Worth reading?”
Richard Vanderwhile appears in Rules of Civility as “Dicky” Vanderwhile, a young wealthy man, recent Yale grad, running with a hard-drinking crowd in New York. Katey, our heroine in Rules, becomes part of that crowd, and so we see Dicky on a number of social occasions in 1938. Until I read your conjecture, I didn’t make the connection!
Those who like Amor Towles’s way with words will enjoy Rules, too. The protagonist, gold-digging upward-scrabbling Katey Kontent, is no Count Rostov, however, so if you want to like/identify with your main character, Rules won’t satisfy. It’s a wonderful portrait of New York in 1938-39, and a certain social milieu just before the war. I gave Gentleman five stars on Goodreads, wavered between three and four for Rules, but I’m tough. 