Follow The Paper

By R.Z. Sheppard

Fiction's private investigators now come in so many colors and flavors that it's easy to overlook their fundamental similarities. Regardless of gender, race or sexual tilt, the best of them still fit Raymond Chandler's classic definition: "He will take no man's money dishonestly and no man's insolence without a due and dispassionate revenge."

Those stern principles are upheld with conspicuous dignity by Benjamin Weaver, the swashbuckling shamus in David Liss's genre-stretching first novel, A Conspiracy of Paper (Random House; 442 pages; $25).

That's right, swashbuckling. Armed with snubby flintlock and limber blade, Weaver does his crime busting in London during the second decade of the 18th century. He is a Sephardic Jew and a former British boxing champion ("the Lion of Judah") who hires out his manly skills to those in need of protection or discreet services--like recovering stolen valuables from brothels. It's a living, but not a consuming vocation until coincidence pulls Weaver into a vortex of stock fraud and murder. The victims include his father, a broker silenced before he could expose a plot to skin shareholders of the South Sea Co.

Liss, a Columbia University graduate student specializing in the relationship between capitalism and the early English novel, has put his researches to imaginative and profitable use. One of his thoughtful innovations is to modify the period's lapidary dialogue for contemporary ears. The effect is to sharpen the thrust and parry of the action and accentuate the pervading atmosphere of class conflict.

Appreciators of authenticity should be pleased with Liss's graphic venues. Weaver's investigations are conducted broadly, from the scuzziest ale houses to the toniest clubs, where the drink is better and the Jew baiting more refined. True to the P.I. breed, the Lion of Judah is never intimidated. He handles his liquor and licks his adversaries with equal confidence.

--By R.Z. Sheppard