The Wealth of Shadows
A Novel
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- Pre-Order
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- Expected May 21, 2024
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- $13.99
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- Pre-Order
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
“A thriller of a different kind—with an unlikely band of economists and bureaucrats working in the shadows to save the world.”—Charles Frazier, New York Times bestselling author of Cold Mountain
An ordinary man joins a secret mission to bring down the Nazi war machine by crashing their economy in this thrilling novel based on a true story, from the Academy Award–winning screenwriter of The Imitation Game and bestselling author of The Last Days of Night.
1939. Ansel Luxford has everything a person could want—a comfortable career, a brilliant spouse, a beautiful new baby. But he is obsessed by a belief that Europe is on the precipice of a war that will grow to consume the world. The United States is officially proclaiming neutrality in any foreign conflict, but when Ansel is offered an opportunity to move to Washington, D.C., to join a clandestine project within the Treasury Department that is working to undermine Nazi Germany, he uproots his family overnight and takes on the challenge of a lifetime.
How can they defeat the enemy without firing a bullet?
To thwart the Nazis, Ansel and his team invent a powerful new theater of battle: economic warfare. Money is a dangerous weapon, and Ansel’s efforts will plunge him into a world full of peril and deceit. He will crisscross the globe to broker backroom deals, undertake daring heists, and spar with titans of industry like J.P. Morgan and the century’s greatest economic mind, Britain’s John Maynard Keynes. When Ansel’s wife takes a job with the FBI to hunt for spies within the government, the need for subterfuge extends to the home front. And Ansel discovers that he might be closer to those spies than he could ever imagine.
The Wealth of Shadows is a mind-expanding historical novel about the mysterious powers of money, the lies worth telling to defeat evil, and a hidden war that shaped the modern world.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
A band of underground fighters are out to hit the Nazis where it hurts—in the wallet—in this unique historical thriller based on a true story. It’s 1939, and Ansel Luxford is a Minnesota tax attorney who gets angrier with each new headline he reads about Adolf Hitler’s global conquest. But he learns he’s not alone when he’s asked to join a secret team of Allied economists and academics with a mission to stop the Nazis…by wrecking the German economy. We were held rapt as Luxford eagerly signs on, only to discover that crushing Germany’s war chest is no simple task—especially when the United States’ official position on the Nazis is still neutral. Graham Moore makes this tale of patriotic number-crunchers as suspenseful and exciting as any espionage thriller, and we loved noticing the real-life historical figures he drops into the story. Whether you’re into history or you just love spy games, you’ll love The Wealth of Shadows.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Screenwriter and novelist Moore (The Holdout) walks a fine line between fact and fiction in this flat historical thriller about the U.S. Treasury Department's efforts to undermine the Nazi war machine. Leading the action are two real-life figures: Treasury official Harry White and his underling, Ansel Luxford, a tax attorney from Minneapolis recruited in 1939 to figure out a way to sabotage Germany's economy without involving the U.S. military. Despite pulling all the financial levers at their disposal, from trade wars to surveillance, White and Luxford meet a series of dead ends. In response, they use their expertise to help England boost its military offensives against Germany, a move that brings them into close contact with Churchill adviser John Maynard Keynes. The allies' efforts climax at the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference, where world leaders discuss how to use a global currency—the dollar—to prevent future wars. Despite attempts to enliven the plot with snappy prose ("We're going to learn how it works, and then we're going to light the son of a bitch on fire," one character exclaims about the German economy), Moore too often gets bogged down by extended discussions of the intricacies of international currency exchange and other financial matters. This may appeal to students of monetary policy, but others are likely to find it dull.
