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A review by timinbc
Newton and the Counterfeiter: The Unknown Detective Career of the World's Greatest Scientist by Thomas Levenson
4.0
This is a good complement to what you already knew about Newton.
I was waiting for further developments in the story, and was surprised when the main body of the book ended at page 247 of 318. The rest of the book has acknowledgements, notes, bibliography and an index. The author wants us to know that he did a lot of work on this!
Levenson is deft about leading us to the conclusion that Chaloner was good, but not nearly as good as he thought he was. Unfortunately the packaging of this led me to expect Chaloner to be a more worthy opponent, more of a Moriarty. This story is almost a police procedural.
I was also a tad surprised to learn that stick-to-principles Newton was capable of being, er, results-oriented when necessary.
If you liked this book, note that Newton is highly visible in Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle trilogy.
I was waiting for further developments in the story, and was surprised when the main body of the book ended at page 247 of 318. The rest of the book has acknowledgements, notes, bibliography and an index. The author wants us to know that he did a lot of work on this!
Levenson is deft about leading us to the conclusion that Chaloner was good, but not nearly as good as he thought he was. Unfortunately the packaging of this led me to expect Chaloner to be a more worthy opponent, more of a Moriarty. This story is almost a police procedural.
I was also a tad surprised to learn that stick-to-principles Newton was capable of being, er, results-oriented when necessary.
If you liked this book, note that Newton is highly visible in Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle trilogy.