Rating: 
Summary: excellent
Review: I loved this book. David Liss is an excellent storyteller. His book is engaging and completely haunting. A real page-turner. I couldn't put it down.
Rating:
Summary: Better than Conspiracy of Paper
Review: I liked Conspiracy of Paper very much, but Liss is even more successful with The Coffee Trader.The plot is extremely intricate, and the reader must work to stay with it, but the work pays off in a terrific resolution. Though I admire Liss's attention to detail and historical veracity, what I most appreciate is that his characters are convincingly three-dimensional. Few people are all good or all bad, yet the proliferation in modern fiction of characters who are no more than straw men is appalling. Liss gives a reader characters that are convincing in their strengths, flaws, and manifold complexities. All in all, this is one of the better suspense stories of recent years, and I recommend it without qualification.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Book about Commodities, Intrigue and Judiasm!
Review: This is a great book about commodities trading, intrigue and medieval Jewish life. The lives of former Iberian Jews living in Amsterdam are brought to life by depicting their synagogue life, their relationship to the Dutch community and their dealings in the Amsterdam commodities market. The book is a really hard to put down once you get into it and most satisfying on all fronts.
Rating:
Summary: Gripping suspense, rooted in fascinating historical moment
Review: The Coffee Trader more than continues David Liss's tradition of crafting gripping suspense stories embedded within a fascinating historical moment. The story begins with the father from A Conspiracy of Paper, down on his luck and struggling to survive some poor trading choices, being approached by a strange associate about a mysterious new drink she has encountered, that is reputed to have strange powers... Liss uses a variety of voices to skillfully keep the reader off-balance, as characters' lives and agendas intersect in unpredictable ways. Each new twist had me gasping, and I stayed up long past a reasonable hour to find out what would happen. Liss also manages to maintain the historical integrity of his characters - giving them ideas and opinions that honestly reflect the times, while still managing to make them appealing protagonists. The character of Hannah, the wife of the main character's brother, is a particularly excellent example of this. Romance, suspense and humor combine to produce a satisfying story with an unsettling ending. Although it took me awhile to accept some of the fates and choices made by men and women in the book, ultimately I admire Liss for making his own complex choices and refusing to simplify characters for the sake of a sugar-coated end.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Read!
Review: I loved Liss's first book, A Conspiracy of Paper, but I have to say I think I love The Coffee Trader even more. This one is set in 17th century Amsterdam and concerns a trader's efforts to get a monopoly on coffee just as coffee is first emerging in Europe. This novel moves and feels like a thriller, and I kept turning pages late into the night to find out what happens next, but Liss doesn't rely on tricks used by cheap thrillers ' no piles of bodies or burning buildings, etc. His protagonist's anxiety about debt, ruin and humiliation make this novel moving and real and very, very compelling. Liss tackles a number of tough topics here: commodities speculation in the 1600s, the insularity and paranoia of the Amsterdam Jewish population, the corrupting nature of trade, and so on. He clearly knows his stuff, and I walked away from the book feeling like I had received a great history lesson, but the book never gets bogged down with details. Probably because the characters are so believable and compelling. Every character has some kind of secret agenda, but it is never what you think, and the novel's conclusion is risky, but very, very satisfying. This is the best historical novel I've read in years. It is suspenseful, funny and addictive. Even people who don't like historicals should check it out.
Rating:
Summary: Put on the kettle and hunker down for a lively read.
Review: As enjoyable as David Liss's first book, A Conspiracy of Paper, may have been, his sophmore effort revals no slump, easily trumping his debut. The Coffee Trader, whose characters Liss's readers may find familiar, takes place in 1659 in Amsterdam, one of Europe's more cosmopolitan and lively cities of the era; merchants and traders, Jews and gentiles, thieves and whores, enliven the city's human tapestry providing intrigue at every turn. The story follows Miguel Lienzo, a Portugese Jew chased from his homeland by the brutal tactics of the Inquisition. Thinking such horrors behind him, he embarks on a career as a trader in Amsterdam; astonishingly, he encounters unsavory characters within his own community whose deviousness eerily echoes that of the Inquisition. But, perked up by a strange, new, bitter berry extract, brewed up for him by an enterprising woman he knows from unsavory taverns, he grinds out a plan to introduce coffee to this part of the world, defeat his enemies and conquer the market in the process. Liss's hilarious descriptions of these nescafe-neophytes is classic -- some chew the beans, others inexplicably mix it with other beverages, never quite getting the brewing process right; in fact, though none of them really like the stuff, they have to have more. Isn't this how we all got started? And the thoroughness of the author's research allows him, through vivid descriptions of streets and markets that one might even recognize today, to transport his readers to 17th century Amsterdam with remarkable clarity. Liss is good enough not to wrap the book up with a Hollywood-style ending, either (if it's made into a film, it surely will be made nice and tidy). Instead, the story concludes with an embedded lesson: all things come with a price.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant!
Review: I have never been into historical novels before but I picked this up because I was intrigued by the title and I started reading. I couldn't stop. What a fascinating time that was - the beginning of modern speculation with its two famous courtiers side by side - fear and greed. The book is a roller coaster between both those extremes as we follow Miguel through his coffee trade just when coffee and its powers have been introduced into the western world. I'm a bit gullible and tend to absorb the qualities of well-written characters until the feel of the book shakes off. I haven't stopped drinking coffee since I started reading the book. I learned, I enjoyed, I recommend.
Rating:
Summary: Deception Begins On the Cover
Review: "View Down A Corridor", is a famous painting that resided in a home in London, and also is on the cover of this new novel by David Liss. I came across the same image in another book of non-fiction I just read. It was owned by Thomas Povey and is one of many tromp-l'oeil paintings that he owned by the Dutch artist Samuel van Hoogstraten. These paintings were extremely complex, for the knowledge that was required to create the fantastic illusions the artist sought were many and varied. This particular piece was hidden behind a door that when opened, appeared to open on an extended hall, when in fact it was simply a brilliant optical illusion created by the artist. David Liss also chose to reverse the image on the cover of his new book, "The Coffee Trader". I don't know if this was simply done to have the primary animal figures face toward the center of the book, or whether he intended to magnify the idea of deception which runs throughout his newest work. In his first book stocks were the method that leads many to take wild risks and chance ruin. In 17th Century Amsterdam it is a new commodity coffee that takes center stage and plays the object that brings forward from many it touches the worst of their human nature. In both books the author never allows for his characters to have unqualified victories, the nature of the business they are in either by definition does not allow this, or the participants rationalize that this is the case. Even when a person may not be a party to deception they are often tainted by just participating and being just as badly hurt as the worst manipulators. This book is a novel but it also approaches near to Historical Fiction as the list of referenced works at the end will attest. The author does a tremendous job of recreating the unusual social structure that was 17th Century Amsterdam, not only for the Jews and their feelings of being guests on a tenuous welcome, but also for the Catholics who were tolerated as well. For some readers he may spend too much time on the social structure of these populations within populations, but I enjoyed it as the book became more than just a novel, but also a lesson in History. The first book by Mr. Liss won him the Edgar Award for best debut novel. "The Coffee Trader", has proven that, "A Conspiracy Of Paper", was no fluke, and I would wager here, just as I did when I reviewed his original book, than when the time comes for awards to be handed out, the work of Mr. Liss will once again be amongst the chosen few. I initially was not going to go with 5 stars for the book's end left me a bit less than satisfied. However that is how Mr. Liss seems to feel those who participate in his book as characters should feel. By keeping a measure of reality with his books and not having an explosive ending, good or bad, he maintains realism, and in the end I like that a great deal.
Rating: 
Summary: Caf-fiendish deception
Review: This is a fascinating story set in the middle of the 17th century about a number of Portuguese-Jewish refugees from the Spanish Inquisition. On the enlightened shores of Amsterdam, they, along with others, make their living in commodities trading, and how remarkably little this activity has since changed over four centuries. As they do now, traders gamble over the rise and fall of prices by buying and selling "puts" (an option giving one the right to sell at a later date for an artificially-high price) and "calls", (an option giving one the right to buy at a later date for an artificially-low price). Having once briefly dabbled in commodities trading, I am familiar with these strategies but never before imagined that they were anything other than 20th-century innovations. Yet at one stage, one trader cynically advises another, "Go buy whale oil - not futures, but the thing itself. You may remember that the rest of the world still transacts business in that quaint manner." The story specifically centers around the efforts of one trader in particular, Miguel Lienzo, who is introduced to a wondrous new fruit called "coffee" that when ground and brewed into drink imparts astonishing powers of reason and concentration and also has the power to preserve health, help digestion, and cure consumption and other maladies of the lung, as well as fluxes, jaundice and inflammation. One character in the novel naively crunches this "fruit" between her teeth before learning of its greater appeal as a brew. Anticipating a tremendous demand for this new commodity, Miguel arrives at a plan to use his trading acumen to acquire a monopoly on it, all the while juggling business and personal affairs that threaten to undo him before his plan comes to fruition. These affairs include Miguel's need to resolve the conflict between the duty of honesty and fidelity that Jewish law imposes upon him with the harsh realities of life on the Exchange and outside the Exchange. They also include the Ma'amad, the self-regulatory Jewish body that actually adopts some of the Inquisition's methods for the greater good of the community. As we follow Miguel's progress, we also note the presence of affable moneylender, Alonzo Alferonda, a victim of "cherem" (excommunication from the Jewish community at the hands of the Ma'amad), manipulating events behind the background - though the extent and the purpose of this manipulation is not revealed until the end. Commodities trading in the year 1659 is essentially a product of rumor and the uses to which it is put, and in an environment unregulated by any sort of futures trading commission, false rumors are used to manipulate the market but are used sparingly lest their sources be regarded as completely untrustworthy for future purposes. In such a world, the dividing line between what is real and what only APPEARS real is often sketchy, and this uncertainty is symbolic of a similar dichotomy of the events in Miguel's life. Who are his friends and who are his enemies? To what extent will his understanding of this be turned on its head by the end of the novel? Does coffee really have a medicinal power to keep us alert and vital, especially now that it comes freeze-dried and/or packaged? Or do we drink it in the morning now out of force of habit? It has since become the definitive American drink and has been so for some time, but I'm actually not aware that it has produced a nation of alert and vital people. Still, having read this novel, I know that I, for one, will never again regard my morning "cuppa" in quite the same way.
Rating:
Summary: A great tale, the best of Liss' novels
Review: I loved this book. If you're looking for a well-researched novel that you can completely become engrossed in, this is it. To me, I base all writers on Ken Follett, the British author who first introduced me to the absolute joy of getting lost in a novel. This book measures up very well to Follett's best. You are transported to 17th Century Europe (or thereabouts, it's been a while since I've read it), and Liss' writing style is very descriptive. It's really great fun to follow the adventures of the dashing Miguel Lienzo. The fact that I remember the leading man's name 16 months after reading the book speaks volumes. I wholeheartedly recommend this novel to anyone who likes a great novel.
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