The Coffee Trader

Starred review from January 27, 2003
Liss's first novel, A Conspiracy of Paper, was sketched on the wide canvas of 18th-century London's multilayered society. This one, in contrast, is set in the confined world of 17th-century Amsterdam's immigrant Jewish community. Liss makes up the difference in scale with ease, establishing suspense early on. Miguel Lienzo escaped the Inquisition in Portugal and lives by his wits trading commodities. He honed his skills in deception during years of hiding his Jewish identity in Portugal, so he finds it easy to engage in the evasions and bluffs necessary for a trader on Amsterdam's stock exchange. While he wants to retain his standing in the Jewish community, he finds it increasingly difficult to abide by the draconian dictates of the Ma'amad, the ruling council. Which is all the more reason not to acknowledge his longing for his brother's wife, with whom he now lives, having lost all his money in the sugar trade. Miguel is delighted when a sexy Dutch widow enlists him as partner in a secret scheme to make a killing on "coffee fruit," an exotic bean little known to Europeans in 1659. But she may not be as altruistic as she seems. Soon Miguel is caught in a web of intricate deals, while simultaneously fending off a madman desperate for money, and an enemy who uses the Ma'amad
to make Miguel an outcast. Each player in this complex thriller has a hidden agenda, and the twists and turns accelerate as motives gradually become clear. There's a central question, too: When men manipulate money for a living, are they then inevitably tempted to manipulate truth and morality? Agent, Darhansoff and Verrill. (Mar. 11)Forecast:The current unstable financial markets give Liss's tale added resonance. Reviews should be plentiful. Nine-city author tour; rights sold in Denmark, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, Spain and the U.K.

November 1, 2002
His A Conspiracy of Paper having won the 2000 Edgar Award for Best First Novel, Liss returns with another tale of historical intrigue. In 1600s Amsterdam, Portuguese Jew Miguel Lienzo ignores the strictures of his community and joins forces with a Dutchwoman to capture the coffee market.

Copyright 2002 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2003
Liss follows his Edgar Award-winning debut, " A Conspiracy of Paper" (2000), with a historical novel that mines some of the same territory--interactions between Jews and Christians, with the stock exchange center stage. The setting this time is Amsterdam in the mid-1600s, where Jews could escape persecution and practice their religion freely. The dubious hero is Miguel Lienzo, a former secret Jew who has fled his native Portugal for this city of freedom. Once a successful commodities broker, Miguel is down on his luck until he tastes a strange foreign beverage called coffee and decides that the lowly bean is the key to regaining his fortunes. Miguel's convoluted and illegal plan for importing coffee leads to entanglements with enemies old and new and to a relationship with his brother's wife, an independent woman trapped in a restrictive culture. A well-researched study of deception and greed in which no character is above reproach.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2003, American Library Association.)