THE COFFEE TRADER

Price-fixing and stock market manipulation may sound like the makings of a modern Wall Street thriller. But in the case of David Liss's second novel, the setting is the Amsterdam stock exchange in 1659, where Miguel Lienzo, a Jew recently resettled from Portugal, struggles to save his name and fortune in the face of unscrupulous commodity traders, family rivalries, tension between Jews and Christians, and infighting within the community of Portuguese Jews escaping the Inquisition. The story is fascinating for its account of seventeenth-century Dutch society and coffee's introduction to Europe, and is made even more captivating by Graeme Malcolm's sensuous reading. Whether you take your coffee black or with cream and sugar, this intriguing and absorbing historical thriller is sure to awaken the taste buds. S.E.S. (c) AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine [Published: AUG/SEP 03]