The Wealth of Shadows

by Graham Moore

Genres: World War II; Spy Thrillers; Historical Thrillers

Synopsis

An ordinary man joins a secret mission to bring down the Nazi war machine by crashing their economy in this historical thriller 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. Tax attorney Ansel Luxford has everything a man could want—a comfortable career, a brilliant wife, 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 team within the Treasury Department that is conspiring 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 espionage, 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 gripping, mind-expanding thriller about the mysterious powers of money and the lies worth telling to defeat evil, as witnessed by an unassuming American at the center of the hidden war that shaped the modern world.