The Coffee Trader: A Novel (Ballantine Reader's Circle) - Softcover

Liss, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0375760903 ISBN 13: 9780375760907

Publisher: Random House Publishing Group, 2004

Synopsis

Amsterdam, 1659: On the world’s first commodities exchange, fortunes are won and lost in an instant. Miguel Lienzo, a sharp-witted trader in the city’s close-knit community of Portuguese Jews, knows this only too well. Once among the city’s most envied merchants, Miguel has suddenly lost everything. Now, impoverished and humiliated, living in his younger brother’s canal-flooded basement, Miguel must find a way to restore his wealth and reputation.

Miguel enters into a partnership with a seductive Dutchwoman who offers him one last chance at success—a daring plot to corner the market of an astonishing new commodity called “coffee.” To succeed, Miguel must risk everything he values and face a powerful enemy who will stop at nothing to see him ruined. Miguel will learn that among Amsterdam’s ruthless businessmen, betrayal lurks everywhere, and even friends hide secret agendas.

About this title

From the Back Cover

Advance praise for The Coffee Trader

“A novel overflowing with intrigue and duplicity . . . Once you’ve wandered the back alleys of Amsterdam with David Liss, you’ll never look at your morning cup of coffee the same way again!” —Sheri Holman, author of The Dress Lodger and The Mammoth Cheese

“In his second novel, David Liss creates his own genre: the historical noir. The seventeenth-century Amsterdam he depicts is a wonderfully dark city of secrets, roiling with deceitful maneuverings and caffeine-fueled perils. The Coffee Trader is vivid, utterly absorbing, and more than a little relevant to our current age of financial skulduggery.”—Gary Krist, author of Extravagance

“It feels as if David Liss has traveled through time to the stock exchange of seventeenth-century Amsterdam and the immigrant society of Dutch Jews who were forced to reinvent their religion after the ravages of the Inquisition. The Coffee Trader is riveting as a historical re-creation, compelling as a tale, and relevant both about the morality of community—in this case, Jewish community—and about the ethical corruptions of an economy where value is a function of perception, competition, and, above all, manipulation.” —Neil Gordon, author of Sacrifice of Isaac and Sea of Green

“Masterfully plotted, brilliantly imagined, The Coffee Trader brims with intelligence, intrigue, and suspense. David Liss has written a riveting novel about commerce and faith, loyalty and greed.”—Tova Mirvis, author of The Ladies Auxiliary
From the Hardcover edition.

About the Author

David Liss is the author of The Day of Atonement, The Twelfth Enchantment, The Devil’s Company, The Whiskey Rebels, The Ethical Assassin, A Spectacle of Corruption, The Coffee Trader, andA Conspiracy of Paper, winner of the Edgar Award for Best First Novel. He lives in San Antonio with his wife and children.

Edition details

• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0375760903
• ISBN 13: 9780375760907
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 402