It took a few tries, but I did finally make it through Quicksilver and was able to use that momentum to get through this one as well. It was kind of a chore, since a far greater proportion of this book was devoted to Eliza, whom I find to be a profoundly uninteresting protagonist. It doesn’t help that her storyline is deeply tied with French politics, in which I have a hard time staying interested. Given that I found the obligatory action bits with Jack in Quicksilver pointless and superfluous, it’s a bad sign that I desperately looked forward to his sections in this book. About two-thirds of the way through the book, though, Eliza pretty much disappeared, and we got back to Daniel and English politics. Much more enjoyable.

Anyway, it does do a nice job capturing the insanity of European global trade in the late 17th century. I think I’ll take a little break before I dive into System of the World, but I am going to finish this series. It’s probably too much to expect that Eliza stays gone, but I’ll remain optimistic.

I initially read this book sometime in high school, but at one point I was discussing the downgrading of fictional Saints in the Catholic Church with my wife, which reminded me of the short story contained here about his meeting with the newly demoted Saints. I re-read that one, enjoyed it, and re-read the rest of them. Very enjoyable, humorous ghost stories, almost in a Wodehouse-y vein, with a sense of humor I wouldn’t have really guessed at from his more serious books. Makes me think I should re-read some of his other works. I suspect I’ll get more out of them now than I did when I was sixteen.