Unlike The 39 Steps (which I enjoyed), I found Greenmantle tedious. Something about the spirit of the book, in which steady Brits and one ridiculous American undertake a dangerous mission and are only too happy to die for their country (or something like that) rubbed me the wrong way. This, combined with the total unbelievability of one (or more) essential plot points, made Greenmantle tough to get through.
A very strange book. Enjoyable overall, but filled with non sequiturs and rants against people (Aristotle, Romans) and ideas (socialism) that that author, who must have been a real character, doesn't like.
The Early History of the Law of Bills and Notes: A study of the Origins of Anglo-Commercial Law by James Steven Rogers
The book's main focus is the debunking of the conventional wisdom involving the incorporation of mercantile law into English common law. As a perfect amateur, I wasn't really all that interested in this aspect of the book. But it's still a very interesting read, providing insights into the origins of negotiability and even, with its discussion of so-called "accommodation bills", into early financial innovations. Having read the book in the aftermath of the collapse of certain other such innovations, this last part of the book was the most interesting to me. But the entire book is quite readable even for non-experts, at least those with some legal background,