Newton and the Counterfeiter available from  Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, iBooks, as an audio book at Audible and wherever books are sold.

Newton and the Counterfeiter

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (US); Faber and Faber (UK) 2009

Newton and the Counterfeiter tells a story almost lost to history, that of a second career pursued by the most accomplished scientist in history:  Isaac Newton’s turn asa currency cop.  For half of his adult life, Newton served as head of the Royal Mint.  In that role, he had the duty to pursue those who debased or faked the king’s coins.  In his first three years on the job, he came face to face with one of London’s master criminals, a coining virtuoso named William Chaloner, the counterfeiter of the title.

The book tells the story of their collision, tracing the life paths that led two such enormously different men to their fatal encounter.  In doing so, it provides an unique view of the Scientific Revolution as it was lived in country lanes and the mean streets of London alike.  Here’s an example of what that means, as told in an essay written at the time of publication:

“At one point I was looking for just a little detail, some record of the weather to give a scene a bit more of the feel of the reality Newton was experiencing at a moment of particular frustration. I discovered that Newton’s friend, John Locke, to whom Newton was writing on the day in question, pissed off about something that had passed between them, had in fact recorded the weather conditions. That led me to the fact that the man who made Locke’s thermometer was the first to use serial numbers to identify a scientific instrument maker’s products. And that’s important because one of the critical ideas that Newton himself advanced was that the new science had to come up with a kind of evidentiary hygiene – some way to make sure that measurements made by different observers could be assessed and compared.

For the book as a whole, this notion that I could get a sense of what living the scientific revolution meant to those there at the moment gave me a way to connect the story of how Newton tracked down the prolific and dangerous Chaloner to the rest of his life. Organizing his questions, gathering evidence, reshaping his web of information into a chain of cause and effect: here he was, using what he had just established as the basic method we still use to investigate the material world – not to solve the motion of a comet, but to penetrate a criminal conspiracy.

In the event, Chaloner put up a grand fight. He evaded Newton’s attempts to capture him for almost two years. But story ends the way true crime usually does: with the doomed Chaloner begging his adversary for that one last chance that does not come. What? You expected the bad guy to be able to escape the smartest man in history? Couldn’t happen.”

Praise

"Levenson reveals the remarkable and true tale of the only criminal investigator who was far, far brainier than even Sherlock Holmes: Sir Isaac Newton during his tenure as Warden of the Royal Mint. What a fascinating saga! It allows us to see the human side of Newton and how his amazing mind worked when dealing with practical rather than theoretical questions.”
—Walter Isaacson, author of Einstein, His Life and Universe and Benjamin Franklin: An American Life

“Newton and the Counterfeiter is a wonderful read that reveals a whole new side to a giant of science. Through a page-turning narrative, we witness Isaac Newton's genius grappling with the darker sides of human nature, an all too human journey reflecting his deepest beliefs about the cosmic order. This is a gripping story that enriches our sense of the man who forever changed our view of the universe.”
—Brian Greene, author of The Fabric of the Cosmos

As the great Newton recedes from us in time, he comes increasingly into focus as a man rather than a myth—thanks in no small measure to this learned and lively new study from the estimable Thomas Levinson.”
--Timothy Ferris, author of Seeing in the Dark

“Newton and the Counterfeiter is both a fascinating read and a meticulously researched historical document: a combination difficult to achieve and rarely seen . . . Recommended for anyone who wants to know the real story behind this astonishing but largely overlooked chapter of scientific history.”
--Neal Stephenson, author of Cryptonomicon and Anathem

"I absolutely loved Newton and the Counterfeiter. Deft, witty and exhaustively researched, Levenson's tale illuminates a near-forgotten chapter of Newton's extraordinary life--the cat-and-mouse game that pitted him against a criminal mastermind--and manages not only to add to our knowledge of the great mathematician but to make a page turner out of it. This book rocks."
--Junot Díaz, author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

“Newton and the Counterfeiter is a delicious read, featuring brilliant detective work and a captivating story . . . a virtuoso performance.”
--Sylvia Nasar, author of A Beautiful Mind

"I loved Levenson's book. It's a rollicking account of the fascinating underbelly of seventeenth-century London--and reveals an aspect of Newton I'd scarcely known of before, yet which shaped the world we know. A tour de force."
--David Bodanis, author of E=MC2

 A thoroughly researched book that wears its learning lightly, Newton and the Counterfeiter weaves together the history of money and a biography of one of our greatest scientists in a readable romp, and offers a new perspective on the Enlightenment by following Newton outside the coffee houses of rich merchants and the "elaboratories" of the Royal Society, to the clamour beyond.

 Heather Stewart, The Guardian
- blurb (take from book)  for Newton & the counterfeiter and Einstein in Berlin.

“Levenson’s account of this world of criminality, collusion and denunciation is meticulously researched and highly readable. . . . The tale of Newton the economist is one worth telling.” —New Scientist

 "Levenson transforms inflation and metallurgy into a suspenseful detective story bolstered by an eloquent summary of Newtonian physics and stomach-turning descriptions of prison life in the Tower of London...Newton and the Counterfeiter humanizes a legend, transforming him into a Sherlock Holmes in pursuit of his own private Moriarity." -- Washington Post

Purchase

Newton and the Counterfeiter can be bought at your independent book store, and all the usual online suspects:  Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, iBooks, as an audio book at Audible and wherever books are sold.