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Fiction. Literature. " A well-researched and highly entertaining historical mystery debut that compares favorably with An Instance of the Fingerpost. Liss's fiendishly intricate tale of financial skulduggery and multiple murder, set in a solidly realized early-eighteenth-century London, has as its redoubtable protagonist and narrator one Benjamin Weaver. . . . The very model of a modern historical mystery.". " A Conspiracy of Paper is exciting, intelligent, and witty--a rare combination in historical novels. It is rich in intriguing detail and peopled with fascinating characters. Recommended enthusiastically.". HTML: THE HISTORICAL THRILLER OF THE YEAR Benjamin Weaver is an outsider in eighteenth-century London: a Jew among Christians; a ruffian among aristocrats; a retired pugilist who, hired by London's gentry, travels through the criminal underworld in pursuit of debtors and thieves. In A Conspiracy of Paper, Weaver investigates a crime of the most personal sort: the mysterious death of his estranged father, a notorious stockjobber. To find the answers, Weaver must contend with a desperate prostitute who knows too much about his past, relatives who remind him of his alienation from the Jewish faith, and a cabal of powerful men in the world of British finance who have hidden their business dealings behind an intricate web of deception and violence. Relying on brains and brawn, Weaver uncovers the beginnings of a strange new economic order based on stock speculation--a way of life that poses great risk for investors but real danger for Weaver and his family. In the tradition of The Alienist and written with scholarly attention to period detail, A Conspiracy of Paper is one of the wittiest and most suspenseful historical novels in recent memory, as well as a perceptive and beguiling depiction of the origin of today's financial markets. In Benjamin Weaver, author David Liss has created an irresistibly appealing protagonist, one who parlays his knowledge of the emerging stock market into a new kind of detective work..… (more)
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The book is narrated by a Jewish Jack-of-all trades of the 18th century in London, an ancient boxer revolted against his family and its traditions; he has turned into a detective of sorts, making money in what we call in the south "the repo business." He
If you want an easy book to read, it is not for you: the style is pretty much the style of the 18th century, which is appropriate for the memoirs of an 18th century narrator. The story is convoluted, because it is told from the point of view of a man who does not have many cards in hand to start with: he is constantly revising his suspicions.
But the very structure allows Liss to present you the early stock market, the treatment of Jews in 18th century London, the atmosphere of bars, a realistic view of the justice system and the prisons of the time. It is all done with a sure hand and delicacy. Lots of characters come out like in Dickens, with strong characteristics: I specially enjoyed the treacherous females!
Make no mistake: the book is fun to read, but only if you are willing to pay more attention than for Patterson, Clancy or Baldacci.This is a true author, not an entertainer.
At times the book moves right along, but sometimes gets bogged down in its own minutia. Yes, there is a lot of information to impart about ‘stock jobbing’ and the changes it brought to British finance, but couple that with intrigue about Ben’s non-existent relationship with his family, angst over his dead father and situation with Miriam and it’s just too much taking the kettle off the boil to really call this a thriller.
I prefer to think of it as historical noir. It has all the hallmarks. Detective or detective-like figure. Side kick. Femme fatal. Hidden adversaries. Hostile police. Beatings. Chases. Betrayals. Fist fights. Snappy dialogue (well, snappy for early 18th century anyway). And Liss does a good job treading the line between historical believability and modern readability. I just wish the train had a bit more of the runaway about it and less of the commuter.
Benjamin Weaver, an ex-boxer, Jew and consummate outsider, plays the heavy in this tale of stock fraud, idiotic projects and unsuspecting investors desperate for outrageous (and impossible) returns. If this sounds a lot like the early 2000's in the US venture community, you are right on. The London of the early 1700s is a lot more rough than Silicon Valley in the early 2000's but the results are the same--lots of money thrown at questionable companies, much hype in the media and then everyone wakes up one morning to ask why a company with no revenues and little promise of any is worth millions. Duh....
This is a well written thriller that appealed both to the mystery lover in me as well as the venture guy. I found myself saying, " what a dumb presentation--I'd never fund that dog" and "what are these dopey investors thinking??" Lots of fun, enough history to make it all believable and a good dose of realistic London life in the 1700s--not very pretty, where life was cheap and hanging was the usual penalty for most any offense by the lower classes.
The book is filled with historical detail of early 18th century London and its financial markets. At the same time, its focus on the stock trade gives it a contemporary feel. The nature of the stock market really hasn't changed much in three centuries. Although the setting is very different, this book reminds me a lot of John Grisham's The Firm -- I suppose since both books involve complex webs of corruption in large corporations.
Benjamin Weaver is an intriguing character. Like everyone else in the book, he appears to be motivated more by self-interest rather than by any moral code, yet it sometimes troubles him when he does the right thing for the wrong reason. I'll be interested to see how his character develops in subsequent novels.
This tale is not that. We have that as
This story uses those details as background. Once again Liss provides his Jewish heritage to give us insight into not only the times but how the Jewish community fits in those times. That additional application of facts enriches the entire tale. But there is something more here then just jewish heritage and the economic troubles of the times. There is a murder mystery, and the bodies keep accumulating.
Certainly the deft weaving of all the elements elevates this book to greatness and even more should be attainable if in the end device is not used for cleverness. Is the bad guy the bad guy, let us cast doubt. That is not needed. Then the complexity of the finances are still complex enough that motive seems wanting.
Is it worth a second read, perhaps in a decade, but it is definitely worth your while now.
The writing style is meant to be fairly contemporary, and pulls it off well without it feeling too stilted; in fact, it can be fairly witty in places. The lead couple of characters are pretty well laid out; Weaver really is conflicted about his status as a Jew, his relations to his family and to society, and for his past conduct. You really get a feel for him. The lead female character, Miriam, is also pretty interesting, although in a similar fashion to his newest novel, the Whiskey Rebels, probably a bit more modern in tone and thought than is historically accurate. The secondary characters were amusing or interesting, but not very complicated, for the most part. For a mystery, that's not that surprising, though.
I enjoyed the mystery part of it well enough, and you do learn a lot about the nature of the markets and such of the time, but it can get to sound a bit like a lecture in some parts. You need the info, but the style fails sometimes that way. At least Liss doesn't hammer home the parallels between the stock market speculation problems of that time and now. The presentation of the time period, the place, and the Jewish community there were well done; I'm pretty happy with it.
This book was quite enjoyable, although not as polished as Liss's more recent work. As a first novel, that's to be expected, though. I look forward to reading more of his work soon.
It's a great pleasure to read a novel that is so tightly written. There are no subplots, characters, or episodes that are completely superfluous. Some of them don't
The setting is in the infancy of the English stock industry with events of the South Sea Bubble as the backdrop. The hero, Benjamin Weaver, investigates whether the deaths of his father and another man were murders, contrary to the coroner's verdicts.
Liss does an excellent job describing the lives and circumstances of both immigrant and native-born Jews of the era. That part of the story is an interesting complement to the mystery itself.
Also, as he notes in the afterword, Liss has modulated the flowery speech of the time with contemporary usage. The result is dialogue that is characteristic of the setting yet never tedious to read. As one character relates on a similar point, there is not much "I am your servant."
This isn't a lightweight book to read in an afternoon! The intrigues and machinations are a bit more complex than most other books, and that only adds to its appeal.
Liss excels in the details of time and place, which allows him to achieve a realistic and factually accurate picture of London during the early stock-jobbing days, Exchange Alley, the Jewish `quarter', Newgate prison, and the most famous - or I should say infamous real-life thief-taker of them all, Jonathon Wild. Thief takers caught criminals and turned them over to the State earning a handsome fee in the process. Wild's imaginative business plan had him playing both sides of the street. He employed crooks and thieves and then `peached' them when their future value fell below the government's price offer.
Liss sets Weaver to solve the murder of his estranged father and one of his father's business associates neither of whom appeared to have been murdered on the face of it (one died in an accident, the other by his own hand). Weaver soon finds himself caught between some of the most powerful forces in 18th century England: the Bank of England, the South Sea Company, and Wild.
Liss spins an engaging tale with marvelously rich historical detail. Unfortunately, he has a taste for overly complex plotting. Liss drops heavy hints first that the bank was behind all Weaver's troubles and then that the South Sea Company was his nemesis. And then the bank, the company, the bank - you get the idea. Mix in a healthy dose of Wild and clues strongly suggesting his alliance with one or the other and the reader feels that the game isn't quite a fair one. Still, Liss's works are high quality historical fiction and I highly recommend his works.
The narrator and protagonist, Benjamin Weaver, is a former pugilist making a living as a "thief-taker"--one who finds stolen goods for a fee among other things. He's also a Jew, and a first generation Englishman, his family having emigrated from Holland. The tale thus immerses the reader in several interesting worlds--from that of the aristocracy to the underworld--and above all the world of the "stock-jobber"--that is a trader in the emerging stock exchange.
I thought the plot bubbled along nicely and made sense, and I liked Benjamin. He's hardly perfect--for one thing he's not above using prostitutes and that is a squick of mine to be honest. He also has quite a temper. But there's something engaging and appealing about him nevertheless and I certainly will be picking up more "financial thrillers" from Liss in the future.
There is a secondary plot, revolving around Benjamin’s relationship with his family. He and they are Jewish, and Jews at that time had an uneasy if tolerated position in society. His uncle is always worried that Benjamin will do something to make the Jews look bad or to give the establishment an excuse to treat them badly. On the other hand, one of the major villains is also Jewish, and goes to the same synagogue as the uncle. Many of the non-Jewish characters are very rude to the Jews throughout the book. Although this isn’t the main plot, and I think the story could have worked without it, it does add a very interesting dimension, making Benjamin an outsider in more ways than one.
There are also a few love stories and other side events to keep the plot moving along nicely. It adds up to a very good read even if you don’t care about financial fraud.