The Coffee Trader: A Novel

By: David Liss

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Synopsis: Amsterdam, 1659. On the world's first commodities exchange, wealth can be won and lost in an instant. It is a truth that Miguel Lienzo, a crafty trader in the city's close-knit community of Portuguese Jews, knows only too well. Once among the most envied merchants, he has lost everything in a sudden shift in the sugar markets. Impoverished and humiliated, living on the charity of his petty younger brother, Miguel would do anything to change his fortunes. Which is why he enters into partnership with Geertruid Damhouder, a seductive Dutchwoman who offer Miguel one last chance at success - a daring scheme to corner the market in an astonishing new commodity called coffee . . . A story of subterfuge, danger and repressed longing, set in a city where betrayal lurks everywhere and even friends have hidden agendas, The Coffee Trader is historical suspense at its most highly evocative.