Margaret
09-01-2008, 07:01 PM
I've just finished reading David Liss's new novel, The Whiskey Rebels, and have posted a review at http://www.HistoricalNovels.info/Whiskey-Rebels.html.
Liss is an interesting author who specializes in historical thrillers that revolve around financial speculation and market manipulation schemes. His main characters will seem familiar to fans of hard-boiled mystery writers like Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. They tend to be types rather than fully-fleshed out characters like Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch, but this is not inappropriate for a thriller. What is outstanding, generally, about his novels is the quality of his historical research into speculative financial schemes of the past and his ability to write a vigorous, physically alive story about schemes that, at least on the surface, involve mostly "paper" and columns of figures. Of course, those columns of figures meant wealth or ruin to flesh-and-blood people.
I thought The Whiskey Rebels could have used more editing. The story is not as taut as it could be, and the excess verbiage of the eighteenth century language slows things down. I thought the flavor of the language could be retained without using quite so many unnecessary words. For anyone who hasn't read David Liss before, I would recommend starting with one of his other novels (like A Conspiracy of Paper). On the other hand, many of the reviews at LibraryThing express high praise for The Whiskey Rebels, so maybe I am being too hard on it. I'll have to confess to not being a big fan of thrillers, because I prefer novels that develop the characters in a deeper, more realistic way.
Liss is an interesting author who specializes in historical thrillers that revolve around financial speculation and market manipulation schemes. His main characters will seem familiar to fans of hard-boiled mystery writers like Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. They tend to be types rather than fully-fleshed out characters like Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch, but this is not inappropriate for a thriller. What is outstanding, generally, about his novels is the quality of his historical research into speculative financial schemes of the past and his ability to write a vigorous, physically alive story about schemes that, at least on the surface, involve mostly "paper" and columns of figures. Of course, those columns of figures meant wealth or ruin to flesh-and-blood people.
I thought The Whiskey Rebels could have used more editing. The story is not as taut as it could be, and the excess verbiage of the eighteenth century language slows things down. I thought the flavor of the language could be retained without using quite so many unnecessary words. For anyone who hasn't read David Liss before, I would recommend starting with one of his other novels (like A Conspiracy of Paper). On the other hand, many of the reviews at LibraryThing express high praise for The Whiskey Rebels, so maybe I am being too hard on it. I'll have to confess to not being a big fan of thrillers, because I prefer novels that develop the characters in a deeper, more realistic way.