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37 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
David Liss and Benjamin Weaver make a great team, April 3, 2004
This review is from: A Spectacle of Corruption: A Novel (Hardcover)
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
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20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"We Know no Spectacle so Ridiculous as the British Public, February 8, 2005
This review is from: A Spectacle of Corruption: A Novel (Hardcover)
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.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great period detail, but muzzle that detective, October 14, 2004
This review is from: A Spectacle of Corruption: A Novel (Hardcover)
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.
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