A Conspiracy of Paper : A Novel

And yet - as a mystery the plot is inexorably bogged down by the endless explanations of how the financial markets work, and of the rivalry between the Bank of England and the S.Sea company.

Moreover, Lisss characters are clearly devices. Neither the heros dissolute surgeon friend nor his rebellious love interest ever emerge as anything more than schematic figures - you feel they are cut and pasted from some catalogue of stock 18th c. figures. The same is true for nearly every character other than the powerful hero, who, although he is made to seem myopic at times, we never really fear for.

In brief, an A+ for history, a C as novel - youll never find yourself breathlessly turning the pages of this one!

Liss certainly gets off to a rousing start and the novel is fairly intriguing most of the way. But it just seems to gradually lose steam as it moves along, particularly as the main character, Ben Weaver, just seems to become less interesting as things progress.

Weaver finds himself involved in what would become the worlds first famous stock scandal, involving the South Sea Company, which was a kind of precursor of things to come in stocks. It was the first bubble stock, rising to incredible value and suddenly crashing down and taking a lot of fortunes with it.

Had the scandal actually been a more integral part of the plot, I might have liked the book better. and the ultimate resolution just wasnt all that compelling.

Still, this is an interesting, entertaining above-average read. Liss does a credible job of recreating the time period. I just would have liked to see more details about the South Sea Company Bubble scandal.