A Gripping Exploration of Modern Greed: Read Our Review of The Money Club by Fiona Lowe

Izzy Harrington’s fiancé, Brad is a successful entrepreneur and everyone’s friend, but today she’s waiting for him to get home so she can tell him they’re over. Except Brad never arrives.

Instead, three angry men knock on the door and insist on talking to Brad. When the police arrive asking difficult questions and demanding to see his passport, Izzy’s packed suitcases suddenly take on a whole new meaning.

Brad’s disappearance sends ripples through their small town and a furious mob camp on Izzy’s lawn, desperate to recover their losses. They have Izzy in their crosshairs, determined to make her pay for Brad’s audacious con.

As the search intensifies, conflicting clues emerge. Clues that suggest no one really knew Brad – least of all Izzy…

The Money Club is a gripping exploration of modern greed as bestselling and beloved Australian author Fiona Lowe unpicks the moral quagmire of those who trade on the bonds of their closest friendships and family for money.

In the age of fraudsters, The Money Club is indeed a timely read. Izzy, the fiancé of swindler Brad, oblivious to his dealings, prepares to leave him, only to find he has left her and devastated the finances of their rural community in the process. From there, we flash back to the origins of the scam and the seduction of the investments, which, like all Ponzi schemes, offers the golden allure of a deal that’s too good to be true – because it is.

We follow Izzy from having it all yet feeling hollow, to the fallout and blame on her, and the implications it has for midwife Lucy and her FIFO husband Jack. This allows for a gripping tale about the price paid for ill-placed trust and the lessons behind having it all, and losing it.

The Money Club bites into some of the main drives and issues of modern society: wealth, greed, jealousy, aspiration and fulfilment. Lowe excels in her ability to embrace the differing attitudes her key characters possess towards money – most particularly, how other people’s money defines us. It offers a reflection into how quick we are to judge the happiness of our neighbours via the appearance of their prosperity.

Lowe’s writing style is as approachable, relatable, well-paced and as humane as ever. She possesses the rare strength of not judging her characters, which provides for the development of their depth, with recurring themes of mistakes and reinvention. There are some lovely descriptions of marital and familial tensions and the universal insecurities that a reversal in fortune can bring about. But ultimately, this is a story of the hope that ascends as victims rebuild and rediscover themselves. I couldn’t recommend it more.

Buy a copy of The Money Club here.