A Conspiracy of Paper [Paperback]

David Liss (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Ballantine (2004)
• ASIN: B001707DSE
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (216 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,054,567 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

David Liss is the author six novels, most recently The Devil's Company. He has five previous bestselling novel: A Conspiracy of Paper, winner of the 2000 Edgar Award for Best First Novel, The Coffee Trader, A Spectacle of Corruption, The Ethical Assassin and The Whiskey Rebels. In 2008, at the United Nations Convention against Corruption in Bali, Indonesia, he was named an Artist for Integrity by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. No one is really sure why he should receive this honor or what it means, but it very possibly makes him the Bono of historical fiction. David Liss's novels have been translated into more than two dozen languages. He lives in San Antonio with his wife and children. Visist his web site at www.davidliss.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

45 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Step Back Into A World Becoming Modern, April 19, 2000

By 

David G. Lalka "MontanaBooks" (Nashville, TN) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Conspiracy of Paper: A Novel (Hardcover)

David Liss takes his readers to the 18th century. Not only does he capture, from extensive and detailed research, the ethos, color, and texture of the time, but his novel, written in the first person voice of Benjamin Weaver, is a near mirror of the writing style and tenor of 18th century British literature.

In this first novel, Mr. Liss educates about the beginnings of the modern financial world--did you ever wonder how and why poeple started attaching value to paper? But, he does so with the intrigue of murder, clandestine meetings, brawls, and the dark alley mysteries of London life. He paints great pictures of the sights and sounds of 18th century London, and yes you can almost smell the stench of the open sewers which were the streets.

His characters come alive. They are well drawn and vigorous. Benjamin Weaver, his narrative protagonist, is not only likeable, but he is extremely interesting, worldly, and persceptive of human nature and human condidion. (We definitely need another novel with this character as our guide to life and times in London.)

This book is without doubt worth the reading. Although it begins a bit slowly, you are committed to discover with Weaver why his estranged Father has been murdered and what that has to do with potential damaging financial scandals.

Mr. Liss is a gifted writer and scholar of the times in which he sets his very good story. Enjoy, his work. It is a labor of love.

35 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Blessed is the season which engages the ...world in a consipacy of love." H.W. Mabie, March 8, 2011

By 

michael a. draper (Guilford, CT) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: A Conspiracy of Paper: A Novel (Ballantine Reader's Circle) (Paperback)

This is a novel that captured my interest and charmed me with the history of London in 1719. The setting was so well developed that I felt I could see the ravages of disease in the prisoners at Newgate Prison and hear the crowd as they taunted a prisoner for being a Jacobite.

Underneath the story itself, there are also political lessons for today when we watch the news and see the political unrest in Egypt and Lybia. This is a time when England is in fear of the French and their support of the deposed King James.

Benjamin Weaver is a Jewish detective who is contacted by a snobbish gentleman named Balfour. Balfour states that he questions his father's suicide and that the person responsible for his father's death is also the person who murdered Weaver's father. This astounds Weaver who was not close to his father and presumed that his father's death was accidental.

Underneath the possible murders is the fact that Weaver's father was a stock trader and there may have been stock forgery that caused the crimes.

Weaver is hired by Sir Owen to retrive some matters he lost when a whore got him drunk and stole his valuables. As Weaver finds the whore, we read of the streets of London and the dangers of a city with little in the way of police.

There are other underlining facts. Weaver is a Jew and there is a feeling in society that Jews are out to steal their money. At one time a character states, "...any man who has lost money in funds (stocks) can follow ...the loss to the hand of a Jew."

I was completely entertained by this novel, the picturesque images of England, the well developed characters and the sophisitcated writing style of David Liss.

50 of 53 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Intriguing and compelling, January 29, 2000

By 

Candace "thepageturner" (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Conspiracy of Paper: A Novel (Hardcover)

Benjamin Weaver is an 18th century London Jew making his way in a complex Christian society, and an equally arcane criminal underworld. After turning his back on family and religion, he has made his living as a boxer, a highwayman, and a thief, until he found the less dangerous occupation of thief-taker. Now drawn back into the world of London's Sephardic Jews by a client who raises questions about Weaver's own father's death, Benjamin is surprised to find himself comforted by the traditions and family he thought he had rejected.

This is one of those books that plop you right in the middle of a fascinating world completely unknown to you. Author David Liss creates the richly textured world of 18th century London Jewry, their traditions, their aspirations, played out against the famous stock speculation by the South Sea Company. Early stock brokers funded much of the 18th century's wars and economic growth from their tables in coffeehouses across London. Of course, there were also disasters, and the Jews, as the only stockbrokers, often took the blame for all sorts of economic downturns, as Weaver finds out.

The characters in "A Conspiracy of Paper" are unusual and engaging. So many books have been set in 18th century London that it seems to be a landscape readers know well. One of the treats of this book is finding a different world in a place we thought we had down pat.