A Conspiracy of Paper: A Novel by David Liss
Publisher: Random House, 2000
ISBN: 9780375502927
ID: PJ0545
Flat Signed! Hardcover first edition / first printing. Fine book in fine jacket, not price clipped, Signed on the title page and is author's signature only. Minimum scuffing and edge wear. No writing or marks. Comes with Certificate of Authenticity for author's signature.
Price in US $ 93.75
Summary: A fool and his money are soon parted--and nowhere so quickly as in the stock market, it would seem. In David Liss's ambitious first novel, "A Conspiracy of Paper", the year is 1719 and the place London, where human greed, apparently, operated then in much the same manner as it does today. Liss focuses his intricate tale of murder, money, and conspiracy on Benjamin Weaver, ex-boxer, self-described "protector, guardian, bailiff, constable-for-hire, and thief-taker," and son of a Portuguese Jewish "stock-jobber." Weaver's father, from whom he has been estranged, has recently died, the victim of a horse-drawn carriage hit and run. Though his uncle has suggested that the accident wasn't quite so accidental, Benjamin doesn't give the idea much credence: I blush to own I rewarded his efforts to seek my opinion with only a formal reply in which I dismissed his ideas as nonsensical. I did so in part because I did not wish to involve myself with my family and in part because I knew that my uncle, for reasons that eluded me, had loved my father and could not accept the senselessness of so random a death. But then Benjamin is hired by two different men to solve two seemingly unrelated cases. One client, Mr. Balfour, claims his own father's unexpected death "was made to look like self-murder so that a villain or villains could take his money with impunity," and even suggests there might be a link between Balfour senior's death and that of Weaver's father. His next customer is Sir Owen Nettleton, an aristocrat who is keen to recover some highly confidential papers that were stolen from him while he cavorted with a prostitute. Weaver takes on the first case with some reluctance, the second with more enthusiasm. In the end, both converge, leading him back to his family even as they take him deep into the underbelly of London's financial markets. "--Alix Wilber"
The Devil's Company: A Novel by David Liss
Publisher: Random House, 2009
ISBN: 9781400064199
ID: PJ0546
Flat Signed! Hardcover first edition / first printing. Fine book in fine jacket, not price clipped, Signed on the title page and is author's signature only. Minimum scuffing and edge wear. No writing or marks Comes with Certificate of Authenticity for author's signature.
Price in US $ 31.50
Summary: The year is 1722. Ruffian for hire, ex-boxer, and master of disguise, Weaver finds himself caught in a deadly game of cat and mouse, pitted against Jerome Cobb, a wealthy and mysterious schemer who needs Weaver’s strength and guile for his own treacherous plans. mWeaver is blackmailed into stealing documents from England’s most heavily guarded estate, the headquarters of the ruthless British East India Company, but the theft of corporate secrets is only the first move in a daring conspiracy within the eighteenth century’s most powerful corporation. To save his friends and family from Cobb’s reach, Weaver must infiltrate the Company, navigate its warring factions, and uncover a secret plot of corporate rivals, foreign spies, and government operatives. With millions of pounds and the security of the nation at stake, Weaver will find himself in a labyrinth of hidden agendas, daring enemies, and unexpected allies.
The Ethical Assassin: A Novel by David Liss
Publisher: Ballantine Books, 2006
ISBN: 9781400064212
ID: PJ0547
Flat Signed! Hardcover first edition / first printing. Fine book in fine jacket, not price clipped, Signed on the title page and is author's signature only. Minimum scuffing and edge wear. No writing or marks Comes with Certificate of Authenticity for author's signature.
Price in US $ 31.50
Summary: No one is more surprised than Lem Altick when it turns out he’s actually good at peddling encyclopedias door to door. He hates the predatory world of sales, but he needs the money to pay for college. Then things go horribly wrong. In a sweltering trailer in rural Florida, a couple whom Lem has spent hours pitching is shot dead before his eyes, and the unassuming young man is suddenly pulled into the dark world of conspiracy and murder. Not just murder: assassination– or so claims the killer, the mysterious and strangely charismatic Melford Kean, who has struck without remorse and with remarkable good cheer. But the self-styled ethical assassin hadn’t planned on a witness, and so he makes Lem a deal: Stay quiet and there will be no problems. Go to the police and take the fall. Before Lem can decide, he is drawn against his will into the realm of the assassin, a post-Marxist intellectual with whom he forms an unlikely (and perhaps unwise) friendship. The ethical assassin could be a charming sociopath, eco-activist, or vigilante for social justice. To unravel the mystery and save himself, Lem must descend deep into a bizarre world he never knew existed, where a group of desperate–and genuinely deranged–schemers have hatched a plan that will very likely keep Lem from leaving town alive.
A Spectacle of Corruption: A Novel by David Liss
Publisher: Random House, 2004
ISBN: 9780375508554
ID: PJ0548
Flat Signed! Hardcover first edition / first printing. Fine book in fine jacket, not price clipped, Signed on the title page and is author's signature only. Minimum scuffing and edge wear. No writing or marks Comes with Certificate of Authenticity for author's signature.
Price in US $ 31.50
Summary: "I sentence you, Mr. Weaver, to be hanged for the most horrible crime of murder." Hearing that judicial decree, Benjamin Weaver--former pugilist, current "thief-taker," and future master of disguise--begins one of the sorriest days of his life. And things will only get worse, as David Liss reveals in "A Spectacle of Corruption", his exuberant novel of 18th-century political chicanery. Tossed into London’s notorious Newgate Prison, Weaver employs his considerable energy and guile (plus tools slipped to him by a mysterious admirer at his trial) to escape--naked--into the city's filthy streets. But then, he risks recapture by trying to figure out who framed him for slaying labor agitator Walter Yate, and why.
How all of this trouble derived from Weaver's pursuit of the culprit behind a priest’s recent spate of hate mail propels the balance of this yarn--the sequel to Liss's Edgar Award-winning debut novel, "A Conspiracy of Paper". It also pushes the Jewish "ruffian-for-hire" into the jeopardous midst of a British power struggle that pits supporters of King George I against the Jacobites, who favor the return of his dethroned Catholic rival, James II. Assisted by his puckish surgeon friend Elias Gordon, Weaver assumes the role of a prosperous plantation owner from Jamaica and penetrates the upper echelons of 1722 London society, hoping to gather information he can use against Dennis Dogmill, a "vicious and unpredictable" tobacco man who may actually have ordained Yate's killing. As Weaver ranges through London's fetid pubs and fancy theaters, and attracts the amorous attention of Dogmill's surprisingly shrewd sister, he also finds himself in the uncomfortable position of backing Griffin Melbury, a Tory candidate for the House of Commons--and the man who stole away his beloved Miriam Lienzo.
Liss has a keen eye for entertaining details of Georgian life, from that period’s exotic diction ("The men in your gang are nothing but cutpurses and mollies and buggerantos") to its most reprehensible pastimes, including "goose pulling"--about which the less said, the better. And though some readers may bog down in the explained distinctions between Whigs and Tories, the author finds considerable humor in that political rivalry and the parties' get-out-the-vote efforts. Once you accept the rather dubious notion that fugitive Weaver could hide in plain sight, "A Spectacle of Corruption" can be appreciated as the lusty thriller Liss clearly intended it to be. "--J. Kingston Pierce"
