The Wealth of Shadows by Graham Moore.
Posted on May 6, 2024 by Jack

It seems an unlikely combination. Nazis and World War 2 could be interesting but it could be very similar to something you already read. Throw in a bit about economics and the Treasury department and it certainly seems unique but probably less interesting. But you would be wrong.

The book is “The Wealth of Shadows: A Novel” by Graham Moore. I thank NetGalley and Penguin Random House for letting me read this before publication. The book is definitely historical fiction but also a very good mystery.

I had requested the advanced reading copy (ARC) based on the Netgalley description and did not realized until I was preparing this review that I had read and reviewed a previous book by Graham Moore.

Before the the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States was officially neutral, bound by a series of Neutrality Acts. This novel begins in this era with the formation of a secret unit is the Treasury department. The purpose of the unit is to cripple the German economy and perhaps destroy the Nazi government in that country while not appearing to violate the U.S. Neutrality Acts.

The novel continues through World War 2 and attempts to remake the world economy so that another World War would not happen.

I liked the author’s note which clearly explained that this was a work of historical fiction with much history and much fiction. He clearly explained which parts were true, uncertain, or modified by him and why he did why he did with them. I was amazed how much was true.

I highly recommend The Wealth of Shadows . The publication is scheduled on May 21, 2024.

The Wealth of Shadows by Graham Moore is a unique thriller that follows an unconventional group of economists and bureaucrats who operate in the shadows to protect the world. This novel is a captivating blend of espionage and intellectual exploration, making it a truly imaginative work of storytelling.

Thank you Random House, and PRH audio, for review copies of The Wealth of Shadows. This is a really interesting book and I say that as someone who tends to avoid WWII reads; I was drawn to this through the examination of wealth and economic themes as I thought, that's something I don't see often in books I read about wars. I valued the approach, the details, and the writing. (at the end of the day I learned a lot but I am still not overly immersed in loving WWII books... I see though how the themes here are relevant to understanding current events and the trends in history that impact us still today).

Thank you to the publisher and netgalley!! I heard about this book on a spring book preview podcast episode and immediately knew I had to read. This is a unique WWII story as it is all about the economics of WWII. It definitely gave a new vantage point and shows how those financial impacts are impacting us even today.

Ansel Luxford is a mostly invisible man: a married Midwestern lawyer with a fascination with economics, he is invited to join a not-quite-above-board arm of the Treasury department in 1939 in Washington and charged with figuring out how to bring down Nazi Germany without using weaponry. Aside, of course, from the weaponry of economics.

This suspense novel is based on the surprisingly dramatic actual events occurring in the US Treasury Department in the years before (and after) the US joined World War 2. The characters are sketched broadly, as often befits fictionalized historical figures, but the real hero of the story is economics. The real action: espionage and the behind-the-scenes, bare-knuckle philosophical slug-fests that led to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. I never expected to enjoy or even, I suppose, understand the role of economic policy in how the US entered the War, how Germany nearly won the War, and how visionary economists created a system in part to help us avoid world war again.

A surprising, well-researched, scholarly but very enjoyable historical fiction! Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for the eARC in exchange for my unfettered opinion.

This page-turner ‘spy’ novel thriller has a unique slant: in 1939, when America is committed to neutrality, economists and lawyers covertly fight the Nazis by controlling money and trade to cut off supplies to Germany. More than that, they are planning a post war world economy that interconnects nations in a way that will repress any future world wars. Amazingly, the story is based on real people and historic events, even the most unlikely parts.

Ansel Luxford had settled for an ordinary life in the Midwest as a tax attorney. He is horrified by the rise of fascism. He realizes that the British were stockpiling U. S. dollars while the Nazis had developed a closed economy, raising money by conquering new territory and taking over the wealth of the conquered, as well as looting the wealth and land of the persecuted Jews. Ansel offers his services to the Treasury Department, in particular to Harry Dexter White, the “only one in Washington who’s doing anything about it.”

Ansel becomes part of a small coterie secretly working under Henry Morgenthau to find a way to curtail fascism through economics. Their earliest plans are foiled by a mole, perhaps Breckinridge Long who as ambassador to Italy became quite a fan of Mussolini and fascism. Ansel meets his idol John Maynard Keynes, only to find himself in a battle of competing visions.

There is a lot of theory bounced around between the characters, and yet I never felt overwhelmed or bogged down; Moore keeps the tension and suspense going.

Moore’s Author’s Note discusses the history behind the fiction, and where the two diverge and converge in the novel.

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel, as I did his previous novel The Last Days of Night.

Thanks to the publisher for a free book.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for providing this ARC.

Huge fan of Last Days of Night. Graham Moore makes historical fiction absolutely thrilling, and The Wealth of Shadows takes it up a notch. The novel deals with the US Treasury's attempts to take down the Nazi war machine by torpedoing its economy. A wild ride through and through that would make an excellent movie.

Best WWII related story I've read in years.

I had read The Last Days of Night by this author and I really enjoyed it, he really made a complex subject like electricity relatable, I was somewhat expecting the same from this as it sounded very interesting. It is a very interesting book, the characters are based on real historical people near the beginning of WW2 and most of what happens in the book really happened, but at times I really had to push myself to pick it up and continue. The two figures most prominent are Ansel and Angela Luxford, a couple who are willing to take chances in order to do the right thing. Which is why they moved to Washington so Ansel can take a job as an obscure researcher for Treasury. There are a group of them trying to find a why to stop the Nazi forward advance in Europe and they do come up with a number of economic ideas that fall apart when they try to implement them (a spy is thwarting their ideas). They do however make headway with some very big ideas which eventually become the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. They are also able to help the British government by providing military equipment, though not everyone was pleased about that. The author includes a very detailed afterward and notes on each chapter at the end, also very interesting to read. I did enjoy the quotes from famous people at the beginning of each chapter though some of the quotes were from modern people not alive during the time period (Elon Musk for example). However I would recommend this if you are a historical fiction/WW 2 fan. Thanks to #Netgalley and #Randomhouse for the ARC.

Moore is an engaging writer, but there's only so much interest and intrigue to be mined from all this talk of economics. Writing a war book with no battles or soldiers where the enemy is entirely off-page (unless we're counting the British philosopher who wants to create a universal currency) and the weapons are presidential speeches is certainly a choice. It didn't pay off for me, and I struggled to get through much of this. There is some genuine wit amongst the protagonists, some fun verbal sparring, but the whole conceit was just too dull to be effective.

First and foremost, a large thank you to NetGalley, Graham Moore, and Random House for providing me with a copy of this publication, which allows me to provide you with an unbiased review.

Back with another piece of historical fiction, Graham Moore takes the reader on an adventure to begin the Second World War. While I tend to steer clear of this era, Moore’s US flavoring and keeping things out of the European theatre had me curious to dive in and push forward. Well presented with great dialogue, Moore impresses as he inches things along.

As European tensions mount and the Nazi Party appears to be pushing its troops across the continent, Ansel Luxford wonders what will happen. Seeing a Nazi rally in his own state, the tax attorney can only hope that the beautiful wife and new baby he has at home will be enough to distract him from the horrors that are being reported. Yet, the US Government has promised to stay neutral, thereby solidifying the position with the population, as war seems all but inevitable across the Atlantic.

After being approached late one evening, Luxford is offered a position within the Treasury Department, one of many secrets in an attempt to push the Americans into the fray of the war, while staying silently on the sidelines. With the teasing of a Washington job and a chance to crush the Nazis under their own jackboots, Ansel Luxford brings his family with him to the nation’s capital to make a difference, though he is still unsure how. What will work to cripple the Nazis and their ongoing march across Europe without firing a bullet?

Once Luxford is settled, he discovers that the team on which he is assigned will be working a campaign of economic warfare, whereby the mighty dollar will be used to block weapons, leave food shares stagnant, and send budgets out the door. Money is the fuel that keeps the fighting going and to turn off the spigot is one way to ensure that things will end soon. An added bonus, it gets no blood—literal and figurative—on the hands of the US Government, as long as it is done in private. Ansel Luxford will have to work under the radar and cross the country (and the world) to ensure the traps are laid, while the Germans feel they can mount an attack on the weaker European nations, in hopes of ultimate success.

With all this action comes risk and Ansel Luxford will soon come across those who would wish to thwart the attempts at American success. He will have to be careful, particularly when his wife takes a job with the FBI to find these spies, sending his secret mission from a Washington boardroom into his own home. A chilling story of trying to pull single blocks out of the massive financial edifice known as the German economy and hoping that everything comes crashing down, without an accusation in his direction. Moore presents a brilliant piece that has all the elements of a great novel.

In a story so heavy with history, the reader has to expect a strong narrative to keep things moving. Graham Moore delivers, using his skills and short chapters to push the story forward and keep the reader eager to keep flipping pages. The central themes emerge against the backdrop of historic events, with Moore basing much of the piece on an actual person and his struggles to cripple the Third Reich from US soil. The characters are relevant for the time period and yet relate to the modern reader with ease. I am pleased to see a new war angle and am happy to have taken the time to read this Moore novel.

Plot lines have a harder way of surprising the reader when history is so heavily involved in the piece. The attentive reader will know where things are going, but Moore peppers in some twists that keep things impactful and well-developed. Surprises prove plentiful and useful, leaving the reader eager to forge onward and learn, while wondering where the fact ends and fiction commences. Moore did well with this piece and kept me eager to watch put for more books before too long.

Kudos, Mr. Moore, for a great piece that has all the elements for success.

I really didn’t want to read another book about WWII. What else could be covered that I hadn’t already read about? Well, Graham Moore put the lie to the myth I’ve read it all. I’ve been a fan of Moore since he so coherently explained electricity in The Last Days of Night. This time, he tackles economic theory based on the true story of a tax attorney who thinks he knows a way to take down the German economy. He goes to work for the US Treasury along with a small group of others. Trust me when I say that you shouldn’t get put off by the idea of an historical thriller based on economic warfare. You don’t need an MBA to understand all the concepts presented here.
I expect historical fiction to teach me something while telling a good story. This does it in spades. I had never understood how a country the size of Germany could so easily take on most of the rest of Europe, Russia and England. This explains it. Nor did I know that the concept of the GNP (gross national product) only dates back to 1939. Or who Breckinridge Long was and the role he played in preventing a Jews from entering the US. The true trick is to insert all those facts without bogging down the story. Moore does that, too.
I was fascinated by this book. In addition to the race to find a way to bring down the German economy, the team is dealing with a possible Russian spy and someone else trying to prevent every idea they come up with. It also provides the history on how the American dollar became the global currency and the formation of the World Bank and the IMF.
There are all sorts of moral and legal implications and it added to the tension to see how each person played the others.
Moore wrote the screenplay for The Imitation Game, so he knows how to write a scene. The car purchase scene with the Professor was priceless.
I also have to give credit to Moore for his choice of quotations at the start of each chapter. And finally, his is the most detailed Author’s Note I’ve ever read. It goes chapter by chapter spelling out the facts, what dates were changed for convenience and what was fiction.
My thanks to Netgalley and Random House for an advance copy of this book.

Stopping the Nazi's by economic means- interesting premise, right? But unfortunately this book is a big miss for me. It was so slow, and I could not connect with it. I even had my husband try to read it and he could not either. I liked that WWII was approached in a different way, but the execution was not good.

A WW2-era historical fiction thriller from an EXTREMELY unique vantage point! This book was based on real people and real events.It focuses on an ordinary man who joined a secret mission determined to destroy the Nazi war machine and cripple the German economy. Graham Moore did an awesome job relaying their stories and highlighting the heroic individuals.

I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys WW2 fiction!

I was so thrilled to get to read this new novel from Graham Moore since I loved Imitation Game so much. This book is different from Imitation Game in many ways, and I wasn't as glued to the content. It was, however, similar in that it is a historical fiction thriller that surrounds WWII. I love historical fiction from this time period, and Ansel and his wife's characters are both so unique to other historical fiction I have read from this time period. I really enjoyed this book. Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing for a copy of this book for an honest review.

This book historical fiction. It has it moments, but overall it is a bit of a slog to read. Based on the author’s reputation I was hoping for something that was engaging and hard to put down. This book was neither. The emphasis on economics was not off-putting. It was the author’s writing style that left much to be desired. It is set during the World War II era and involves a different approach to fighting fascism.

I received a free Kindle copy of this book courtesy of publisher with the understanding that I would post a review on Goodreads, Net Galley, Amazon, Facebook and my nonfiction book review blog.

Special thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free, electronic ARC of this novel received in exchange for an honest review.
Expected publication date: May 21, 2024
Graham Moore is an award-winning novelist and, although I haven’t read any of his fiction stories before, I adored one of his works- the screenplay for the movie, “The Imitation Game”. “Game” was gripping, engaging and fascinating but that could also be the inclusion of the wonderfully talented Benedict Cumberbatch. Moore’s new novel, “The Wealth of Shadows”, was the first fiction novel I’ve read by him, and it did not measure up to “Imitation” in any way.
In 1939, Ansel Luxford is a tax attorney with a young daughter, Angie, and a whip-smart wife, Angela. Although Ansel believes that war is imminent, the United States has pledged complete neutrality. But then Ansel gets asked to join a secret government Treasury team in order to find a way to financially bury the Germans, making their upcoming siege impossible.
“Shadows” is a historical fiction novel although the situations, and most of the characters, including Ansel himself, are based on real people. The novel is categorized as a “historical thriller”, but there isn’t anything that thrilling about it. Unsettling maybe and tense, unarguably, but I wouldn’t call Moore’s novel a “thriller” on any spectrum.
Ansel and his wife are great characters and the most relatable, which makes sense seeing as Ansel and Angela are almost invisible in historical records because they are so ordinary. They are the closest thing to “normal folk” that you’ll find in this novel, where everyone else is (literally) the famous economist Maynard Keynes, famous ballerina Lydia Lopokova (Keynes’ wife) and even the ludicrously wealthy J.P. Morgan, but the Luxford’s were the sole reason I kept reading.
Keynes plays a heavy role and this novel is very thick in economic theories (his and others). If you have an interest in how individual countries run their economy, how and what influences economies in times of war, the history of money or any of the duties of the United States Treasury Department, then “Shadows” is definitely for you. Although I appreciated the “spy” aspect of Moore’s novel, there wasn’t enough of it and the thick economic theories confused and, if I’m honest, bored me. There was a lot of back-and-forth conversations and clandestine meetings between influential figures that left me lost- mostly because I wasn’t interested in their topics of conversations.
I understand the importance of the global economy in times of war, obviously, and the influence of money in politics. However, economics theory has far too much math and numbers in it for me and although I enjoyed the story itself, most of it felt like I was reading a textbook on “The History of Economics”.

I am a huge fan of Graham Moore—I loved both The Last Days of Night and The Holdout and of course loved The Imitation Game as well. I was so thrilled to receive an ARC of this book from NetGalley, so thank you very much to them and the publisher for the chance to provide this review.

This book is about Ansel Luxford, a tax attorney who joins a secret group within the Treasury Department attempting to crash Germany’s economy during WWII. From then on, he and his group must deal with spies working against them at almost every turn, coming head to head (and sometimes nearly to blows) with famous names of the day, and doing everything they can to save the world from fascism, all while America is supposedly “neutral” in the conflict. Their tool for their mission? Money.

This book was a combination of historical fiction and the most addictive spy thriller—I couldn’t put it down! I learned a lot while reading this book—it’s full of economic and philosophical theories, but they are explained in a way that makes it very understandable, even if you know relatively little about these topics. I also loved the author’s note at the end, where Moore breaks down by chapter exactly which parts of his brilliant story are fiction, and which really happened. I’d highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoyed Moore’s other books or enjoys whip-smart historical fiction/spy novels. 5 stars!

Review posted on goodreads and instagram.com/blondebookedandbusy on March 9, 2024 (links below)

This new novel by Graham Moore uncovers the economics behind the winning of World War II, which is a topic I had never considered and frankly never would have thought would be interesting. The way he portrays the backroom dealings, backstabbing and full of espionage made the novel unputdownable and way more interesting than I would have thought. Based on factual accounts and real people this will make a great book club book with lots to discuss.

Nazi Story!

When Ansel, a tax attorney is offered the opportunity of a lifetime he grabs it with both hands. He and his family move to Washington to join a secret mission within the treasury department.

Based on a true story, Moore has created an espionage thriller on economic warfare when the world is again on the precipice of war.
It's thrilling and believable. Best yet, Moore adds in chapter by chapter breakdown of what is true and what he created. If you are a war buff, a historical book fan or love spy thrillers, this is your next book! #randomhouse #grahammoore #thewealthofshadows

The Wealth of Shadows is advertised as a "gripping,mind-expanding thriller, " full of spies and intrigue. However, don't expect high-speed chases, gun fights, or fiery explosions. Rather, the story details the maneuvers of a secret group within the US Treasury Department who developed shadowy, sometimes illegal, intricate financial strategies to destroy the WWII Nazi war machine. Once I slowed my reading and adjusted my expectations (that this book was not a James Bond or Jason Bourne spy thriller), the story was quite interesting. I learned so much about how economic war can be waged as well as how to use economic ideas to bring about peace.

Moore states this is a novel wrapped around true events. Many of the characters were real people and the main events actually happened, although he adjusted details, invented conversations, and streamlined the number of characters so as to make the narrative more readable. An Author's Note documents what was real and invented for each chapter, credibly demonstrating the extensive research that shaped the book.i would have liked him to have included a bibliography of sources. I could then do further reading.

Biographies of Harry White and John Maynard Keynes are readily available, so there was significant material on which to develop those two characters. However, there is scant historical information about the main character of Ansel Luxford or his other Treasury colleagues, all who actually existed. Moore did a great job of finding scraps of information, relatives to interview, interesting historical accounts and other sources, to flesh out these people and make them relatable to readers.

Another highlight of the book are the quotes that open each chapter. Many are from famous economists while others are from a range of philosophers and politicians. The selected quotes effectively framed chapter events.

Moore provides extensive technical descriptions of international monetary practices and the manipulation of currency markets. Sometimes these were overwhelming and frankly, did slow down the story. However, they were important for understanding how the various financial strategies evolved, then ultimately why the IMF and World Bank were established.

If you are a fan of WWII fiction, I recommend this book due to its unique perspective on the era.