The Wealth of Shadows - by Graham Moore (Hardcover)

About the Book

"1939. Ansel Luxford has everything a man could want-a law firm partnership in Minneapolis, a brilliant wife, a beautiful new baby. But he is consumed by his belief that the war in Europe will spread, despite the fact that the United States is neutral in the conflict. When he is offered an opportunity to move across the country to Washington, D.C., to join a clandestine team within the Treasury Department that is secretly trying to undermine Nazi Germany, he uproots his family overnight and takes on the challenge of a lifetime. To thwart the Nazis without firing a bullet, Ansel and his new team invent a powerful new kind of economic warfare. As the U.S. remains officially neutral, Ansel secretly crisscrosses the globe to broker backroom deals designed to cut off the German supply of gold; undertake a daring heist of intel suppressed by homegrown fascists within the American government; and spar with titans of industry like J.P. Morgan and the twentieth century's greatest economic mind, Britain's John Maynard Keynes. But money is a dangerous weapon, and Ansel's efforts will plunge him into a startling new world of espionage, peril, and deceit. The need for subterfuge extends to the home front when Ansel's wife takes a job with the FBI to hunt for spies within the government. And Ansel discovers that he might be closer to those spies than he could ever imagine"--

Book Synopsis

"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.

Review Quotes

"If John le Carré and Ken Follett collaborated on a novel, they might have written one as good as The Wealth of Shadows."--James Patterson, #1 New York Times bestselling author

"A thriller of a different kind--with an unlikely band of economists and bureaucrats working in the shadows to save the world. Graham Moore brilliantly balances deep research into a crucial but little-known moment of history with the tension of a complex espionage story."--Charles Frazier, New York Times bestselling author of Cold Mountain

"Based on astonishing true events, The Wealth of Shadows is both a gripping, cinematic story of wartime subterfuge, and a powerful reminder of how even the most unlikely people can become resistance fighters during times of crisis."--Flynn Berry, New York Times bestselling author of Northern Spy and Trust Her

"Fascinating and compulsively readable. Featuring an unlikely and unsung hero who outthinks some of the world's greatest financial minds, the novel is also a deep meditation on the nature of money, a dramatic and eye-opening explanation of what really triggered our entry into World War II, and a powerful depiction of the people and forces that changed global finance forever."--Mark Sullivan, bestselling author of All the Glimmering Stars and Beneath a Scarlet Sky

"A truly imaginative work of storytelling: part spy thriller, part novel of ideas. Graham Moore takes readers on a riveting journey full of unexpected twists and turns that will keep you guessing until the very end, all the while toying with mind-expanding ideas about what makes the economy work and money go round."--Liaquat Ahamed, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Lords of Finance

About the Author

Graham Moore is the New York Times bestselling author of The Holdout, The Last Days of Night, and The Sherlockian; and the Academy Award-winning screenwriter of The Imitation Game, for which he also won a Writers Guild of America Award; and director and co-writer of The Outfit, which was nominated for a British Independent Film Award. Moore was born in Chicago, received a B.A. in religious history from Columbia University. He lives in Los Angeles.