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A Spectacle of Corruption (Benjamin Weaver Series)

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Along the way to completing his doctoral dissertation on 18th century British literature and culture, David Liss took a detour down a different path. He authored A CONSPIRACY OF PAPER, and for his effort was awarded the 2000 Edgar Award for Best First Novel. While the halls of academia lost a potentially fine college professor, mystery aficionados gained a writer who combines his skill as a historian with excellent writing talents to produce compelling and fascinating novels.

A SPECTACLE OF CORRUPTION is the sequel to the first Liss novel. Once again, readers are transported to London during an era when England and the British aristocracy ruled the world. Benjamin Weaver, the classic mystery novel protagonist, makes a return appearance in the book and once again must solve a crime that has personal significance.

Weaver is a classic outsider. He is a Jew in a Christian community, an ex-boxer who supports himself by tracking down debtors and felons for aristocratic clients. In contemporary society he would be Sam Spade, Mike Hammer or any number of characters found in Elmore Leonard novels. In Weaver's first appearance in A CONSPIRACY OF PAPER he was called upon to investigate his father's death. In A SPECTACLE OF CORRUPTION the problem is even more personal: Weaver must investigate a murder for which he has been wrongfully charged and convicted.

In the year 1722, England was embroiled in a parliamentary election viewed as a referendum on the rule of King George. As the novel opens, Weaver finds himself on trial for the murder of Walter Yate. Confident in his innocence, Weaver is stunned to hear the Old Bailey jury return a verdict of guilty and in accordance with that verdict sentenced to be executed by hanging in six weeks. As he is led back to the Newgate prison, Weaver is accosted by a courtroom spectator who slips a lock pick and file into his hands. Using those tools, and with the aid of a friendly fellow inmate, Weaver is able to escape from prison.

However, escape is not freedom. He must confront two mysteries. Someone has gone to substantial lengths to see an innocent man wrongfully convicted of murder while an equally mysterious agent has gone to great lengths to set him free. Weaver's life hangs in the balance as he races to solve this conundrum.

Weaver must somehow infiltrate London society to ascertain the identity of both his accusers and defenders. He assumes the role of a tobacco grower recently returned to England from the colonies. With the looming election and the possibility that the British monarchy may be toppled, Weaver must navigate an English society heavily embroiled in both politics and crime. It is a difficult task, but Weaver is up to the challenge.

There is a freshness and uniqueness in reading and solving an 18th century mystery. Detectives must rely on guile rather than gadgets to solve the crime. There are no crime labs or computers to provide simple answers to complex problems. Liss must have Benjamin Weaver solve the murder of Walter Yate by simple and basic methods: thought, hard work and logic. Along the way, the reader is provided with a portrait of 18th century England that is educational and informative. In addition, a great detective shows once again that top notch sleuthing knows no historical limitations.

David Liss and Benjamin Weaver make a great team. We know they will be back --- and we can hardly wait.

--- Reviewed by Stuart Shiffman

in one of its periodical fits of morality." Lord Macaulay.

For England the year 1722 was not one in which the public engaged in a fit of morality. No, 1722 was a year filled with plots to overthrow the Hanoverian King George in order to restore the Stuarts to the throne. It was a year in which the panic caused by the collapse of the South Sea Bubble came to a head. It was, finally, a year in which a general election was held in which the Tories, thought to be sympathetic to the Stuarts, did battle with the Whigs, sympathetic to King George. Many thought a Tory victory would lead to a restoration of the Stuarts. Much was at stake. 1722 was a year of spectacles but it was a year in which an exceedingly dirty and violent election campaign turned the year into a spectacle not of morality but of corruption.

David Liss tosses Benjamin Weaver, the protagonist of his well-received Conspiracy of Paper, into the middle of this political maelstrom. Weaver is a retired boxing champion and well known throughout London. However, he is Jewish, and as such his boxing fame cannot provide him with an entry point in English life generally. He is not permitted the right to vote and he would not be welcomed into most clubs or at most social functions. He works as a thieftaker (he finds stolen property and returns it to its owner for a fee) and a private investigator of sorts.

Weaver is hired to find out who has been sending threatening letters to an Anglican priest who has been speaking out on behalf of oppressed dock workers. Almost immediately upon commencing his investigation Weavers is arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of a dockworker. It is a murder Weaver did not commit. It is clear from the start of the trial that the fix is in but as he is carried off to Newgate prison to await execution a mysterious woman slips Weaver the tools from which he manages to escape. A wanted man, Weaver assumes a new identity while trying desperately to unravel the events that triggered his being framed for murder.

It seems that Weaver's investigation on behalf of the priest has placed him in the crosshairs of both the Whigs and the Tories in the middle of the 1722 election campaign. Nothing is as it seems. Weaver cannot vote and does not therefore have an interest in politics. This makes it even harder for him to analyze his situation. His old adversary and fellow thieftaker Jonathan Wild plays a major role yet Weaver cannot understand why Wild might actually reach out to help him in his endeavors. The love of his life, Miriam, also plays a major role. She has, since Conspiracy of Paper, married a British aristocrat and converted to Christianity. Her husband is running for parliament. He may be a friend and ally but Weaver cannot be sure.

Spectacle of Corruption made for a very enjoyable read. It is difficult for anyone writing historical or political fiction to provide enough background material so that any reader can enjoy the full flavor of the book. Liss does an excellent job of setting the table without turning the novel into a text book. There may be parts where the complexities of the political system take a while to explain. However, those explanations help the reader actually understand what Weaver is up against. More importantly, Liss keeps the story line going and does a good job keeping the excitement level up, even when the pace slows down a bit. I think Liss has done a decent job fleshing out the personalities of his principal characters. There seems to be more depth to the characters than existed in Conspiracy of Paper. This bodes well for an eventual third volume.

All in all a book worth reading.

David Liss writes about the 18th century, but his subjects casts a curiously strong light on modern institutions. In his previous two novels, early finance capitalism is all too recognizable to modern readers for its pervasive corruption. "A Spectacle of Corruption" turns its eye on another cherished modern institution, "free" elections. British voters of the early 18th century would have been confounded at the idea that elections should be free, when so much money was there to be made, and insulted if no one bothered to buy their votes. The idea that elections should be free and fair is by no means a natural one, a fact we ignore at our peril. David Liss shows that elections in England were a well handled tool of the British rulers, not a great leap in human liberty. The subject is quite topical as we watch the modern spectacle of election fraud.

"A Spectacle of Corruption" returns to the story of Benjamin Weaver (from "A Conspiracy of Paper"), a Jewish pugilist turned "thief taker" - an occupation much like detective, except that its practitioners are expected to fabricate evidence as often as not. He accepts a commission to identify the author of letters threatening a priest for his duplicitous defense of British dock workers. The waters turn very deep when Weaver finds himself framed for the murder of a dock worker and quickly condemned to a death sentence. Someone badly wants him dead, but it appears that someone just as badly wants him alive when a mysterious woman gives him the means to escape. His journey to exonerate himself takes him from the world of the British working class, where incipient trade unions degenerate into gangs run by thugs, to the parties of the ruling class, where election fraud is an openly practiced art.

Liss is a better writer with every book, and his knowledge of the era makes for fascinating reading, but I find him less capable with each book of creating a likable main character. This may be by design, but it's a dangerous tactic for a writer. Weaver was a sympathetic figure in "The Conspiracy of Paper" - outside the Jewish community looking in, trying to maintain a standard of honor in a sordid trade. Within the first 120 pages of "A Spectacle of Corruption," he has cut off an unarmed man's ear and thrust another's head into a chamberpot, nearly drowning him. He does these acts with a peculiarly detached, even sociopathic attitude, at odds with his previous depth of feeling. "I considered his words for a moment and then reached out with a speed than even I found remarkable. With one hand I grabbed his right ear, and with the other I used my knife to sever a substantial part of it. I held the bloody thing in my fingers and showed it to him before tossing it onto his writing desk, where it landed on a pile of correspondence with a heavy slap. Too astonished to cry out or even to move, Rowley only stared at the little pieces of flesh...'Where do you keep your banknotes?' I asked again."

The author tries to redeem Weaver later with strong concern for abused geese and women, but he certainly didn't win me back. You could make a good argument, based on "The Coffee Trader," that Liss wants to show his characters increasingly alienated and disaffected, but pushing ordinary people into the realm of sadism without remorse is not the way to go. With all his writing skills, he doesn't seem able to darken his characters without making them emotionally flat. He'd be wiser imputing torment to his characters than deadened feeling. At some point, wonderful period detail notwithstanding, I will stop reading if sociopaths become the subject.

Ben Weaver is back and in more trouble than before to solve a new mystery upon which his life depends.
The story delves into fascinating aspects of the British election process in 1722, with the scandals, powerplays and corruption; and almost 300 years later, we can see not much has changed. I like a book that both educates and entertains.
The author has a talent of taking a topic in a slice of history that may not seem on the outset interesting, but in the telling of the story the author shines in his clever plotlines, entertaining characters, uncovering sardonic historical intrigue.

In this sequel to "A Conspiracy of Paper," framed for a murder and sentenced to hang, ex-pugilist and now "thief-taker" Benjamin Weaver, The Lion of Judah, escapes from Newgate Prison and sets out to clear his name. Weaver's quest takes him on a tour of London's seamy and genteel sides with scarcely a moment for either Weaver or the reader to catch his breath. This is a world of bought judges, crooked elections, racketeering gangs, exploitation, deceit, sedition, and filth that truly lives up to the novel's title. It is nothing resembling Boswell's and Samuel Johnson's London, but is instead a dystopian view of an often glorified time. Free, but in constant danger, Weaver hides in plain view and disguises himself as a West Indian planter. He then moves back and forth between "genteel society" and his own identify in his attempts to unravel the mystery and save himself. This leads to his peripheral participation in both sides of a parliamentary election campaign where corruption, money, brutality, and treason rule in what a character describes as "A Spectacle of Corruption." However, this is not a dark novel. It is instead more picaresque with abundant humor, adventure, and romance to offset the bleak society portrayed. Cast adrift and surrounded by human sharks, Weaver must live by his wits with the assistance of his friend Elias. His cousin and lost love, Miriam, also returns in this book, only to have left Jewish society to marry a character key to the story. Weaver does not overly despair because he finds a new love interest, and wonders at one fleeting point if he could remain in his new identity forever. Nevertheless, Weaver realizes his position is tenuous and fated to always be at the fringes of society. Although a sequel, "Spectacle of Corruption is virtually a stand-alone novel, but to fully appreciate the setting, "A Conspiracy of Paper" should be read first. The author, David Liss, definitely avoided the sophomore jinx, and there are many possibilities for future adventures of Benjamin Weaver.

In his previous two novels David Liss dealt with themes revolving around finance in a historical setting. "A Conspiracy of Paper" tells the story of Ben Weaver and his search for his father's murderer. Ben soon finds that the reason behind the crime is connected to a scam in the financial markets. But Weaver's real family name is Lienzo, and in "The Coffee Trader" Liss goes back in time to narrate the story of Miguel Lienzo, on of Ben's predecessors who amassed his fortune through the trade of futures in the Dutch market. In this novel we find again the character of Ben Weaver, with the focus of the novel changing to a political setting.

Ben is accused of killing Walter Yate, crime of which he is innocent, but he finds himself going to trial anyway. It is almost funny that someone who killed others in the course of his business before and who escaped the consequences unscathed, finds himself in the "hot seat" when he truly is not guilty. Those that have read the previous book featuring Weaver will surely remember Jonathan Wild, one of the most colorful and intriguing characters in that novel. Wild is a notorious criminal and a sort of "godfather" who has people stealing for him and then he charges the owners of the goods for their return. Wild is also Ben's adversary, since they practice similar businesses, with Ben taking the honest route. That is why when Wild is called as a witness in Weaver's trial, we are expecting to see a clear case of perjury and Ben hanging as a result. But beware, Liss likes to surprise his readers!

The trial presents some very interesting aspects, dealing with witnesses that lie and recant in the spot, a judge that is focused on seeing Ben convicted and a jury that allows to be badgered into a verdict. This is how Ben ends up in death row and his only way out is to escape prison after a lovely lady he has never seen in his life provides him the means to do so. Now, he is determined to find the real culprit and to clean his name. In order to achieve that, he has to embark in a very dangerous adventure that will situate him against some clever adversaries that know how to play the game of politics.

There are two aspects that have been present throughout all three books by Liss. One of them is showing how unfair the treatment of Jews was in the different time periods and places selected as settings for the stories. In this case, in the eighteenth century in England, we find evidence of such treatment on various occasions. The most blatant one is during sentencing, when the judge tells Ben: "I can see no reason for leniency, not when there are so many Jews in this city". The other aspect is the importance of family, which of course is not disconnected from the first one at all, since the Jewish religion pays the utmost attention to family. In the present novel, we find Ben suffering over Miriam's decision of rejecting his marriage proposal and marry another man instead. Miriam is the widow of Ben's cousin, and not only did she marry a Tory candidate, but she had to convert to the Protestant religion in order to do so. As a result, she is not allowed to communicate with Ben anymore.

This novel is a novel with interesting characters, a well-developed plot and detailed and realistic descriptions of the settings in which the story unravels. This allows the reader that is not familiar with this historic period to get a very good idea about how life was at the time and also understand the motivation behind the different political parties. What makes this book even more remarkable is the fact that the talents displayed by Liss do not stop there, since the author shows a clear knack for suspense and mystery. All these points make this a very hard novel to ignore.

Before reading this book I recommend you read Liss' first book "A Conspiracy of Paper." The first book will introduce you to Benjamin Weaver and London in the early 1700's. In both his books Liss displays an uncanny abilty to weave history with fiction. One can feel through the authors first person detailed descriptions the grit, grime and smell of that time and place. Both books smoothly moves one through intricate plot and unforgetable characters. Both books are page turners. A highly recommended read.

David Liss re-creates the sounds, looks and even smells of life in cramped, dirty and violent London of the 1700s. Benjamin Weaver is a thief-taker, former pugilist and highwayman who haunts the back alleys and taverns for his next job. I also like how he embraces his Judaism when he is confronted by the venomous anti-semitism of "enlightened" Londoners.

A great series for fans of historical fiction.

David Liss, once again, in a marvelous literary effort meticulously recreates the past in his very effective historical fiction "A Spectacle of Corruption".

The tale takes place in 1722 England, a time of unprecedented political and social turmoil. The Catholic King James II has abdicated the throne in favor of German born King George in 1714.
Factions called Jacobites exist that support James' son James Stuart as the rightful heir to the throne. Due to a severe depression caused by a stock narket crash, a general election is being held as a referendum on the rule of King George. The 2 major parties, the church supporting Tories representing wealthy property owners and the Whigs representing the landless nouveau riche are using any corrupt means possible to garner votes.

The story revolves around Benjamin Weaver a Jewish ex-pugilist who now functions as a thieftaker or detective. Weaver is framed on trumped up charges of murdering a labor organizer Walter Yate. Yate represented the quayside porters of the Westminster borough, a hotly contested seat in Parliament. Dennis Dogmill, a wealthy tobacco importer and Whig election supervisor, with the help of a sympathetic judge has Weaver convicted and sentenced to hang. Weaver eventually escapes from Newgate prison and with the aid of friends assumes a disguise of a wealthy Jamaican plantation owner to try to clear his name.

With the election as a backdrop Weaver becomes involved with both Whig anf Tory campaigns and witnessses the widespread corruption involved. The plot eventually leads to the shocking actual reason for the betrayal of Weaver.

Liss with the aid of exhaustive historical research does an illuminating job in his description of daily life in this time period.

I love this book! It combines two literary loves of mine - detective/mystery novels and historical fiction, with a heavy dose of what life must have been like in England of 1722. The detective is the 18th century equivalent of Sam Spade, private eye.

I got an insight into a very confusing time in English history and a glimpse of what it must have felt like on a daily basis to live there and then.

For anyone in the modern period, 1722 was strange enough to be like science fiction but familiar enough to show what humanity could be like without all the social and governmental safeguards we have now.

I often read one of the many historical myteries set in Roman times such as the SPQR series. While the views of daily life are wonderful in those novels, the mystery part is usually a little obvious. But Liss succeeds in both genres. Fascinating mystery and gereat feeling for the 1700's.