Making Money recap

Now the respectable and thoroughly bored Postmaster of Ankh-Morpork, the reformed con man Moist von Lipwig is steered by Lord Vetinari toward the city's failing Royal Bank. When the elderly chairwoman Topsy Lavish dies, she leaves control of the bank, by way of ownership of her small dog Mr. Fusspot, in Moist's keeping, setting him against the grasping Lavish family and above all the cold, scheming Cosmo. Moist takes over the bank and Mint and pushes a radical idea: paper money, banknotes backed by trust rather than by hoarded gold, over the horror of the rigid chief cashier Mr. Bent. He recruits a timid forger to design the notes, dodges a blackmailer from his criminal past, and weathers a crisis when the bank's gold reserves are called into question. His fiancee Adora Belle returns from a distant expedition with a colossal discovery: an army of ancient golden golems. Cosmo, meanwhile, unravels into madness through his obsession with imitating Vetinari. In the end paper money is established, the golden golems secretly underwrite it, Cosmo is destroyed by his own fixation, and Moist is confirmed as the man in charge of the city's money.

Previously, in the earlier book: Moist von Lipwig was a career confidence trickster who operated under false names until he was caught and hanged. Lord Vetinari, ruler of Ankh-Morpork, faked the execution and offered him a choice, revive the city's dead Post Office or die for real. Moist took the job, invented the postage stamp, cleared decades of undelivered mail, and defeated the corrupt magnate who had been running the continent's signalling network into the ground. Along the way he fell for the sharp, chain-smoking Adora Belle Dearheart, who runs a trust that frees golems, and the two became engaged. Having discovered that honest work could be as thrilling as any swindle, Moist stayed on as a respectable public official. As this book opens, he is the successful Postmaster, and quietly dying of boredom.

Restless with respectable success, Moist is pushed by Lord Vetinari toward the city's ailing Royal Bank, a stuffy institution run by the powerful and unpleasant Lavish family and its rigid chief cashier, Mr. Bent, who worships gold and the ledger. The bank's frail elderly chairwoman, Topsy Lavish, takes a shrewd interest in Moist and distrusts her own grasping relatives, chief among them the cold, ambitious Cosmo. Through the terms Topsy sets around her pampered little dog, Mr. Fusspot, Moist finds himself entangled with the bank and set at odds with the Lavishes, who want him gone. His fiancee Adora Belle has left the city on an expedition to recover golems said to lie buried in a distant, ancient land.

Moist takes real hold of the bank and its Mint and begins to reinvent the city's money. Against Mr. Bent's outrage, he pushes a radical idea: paper banknotes, money backed by confidence rather than by a locked vault of gold. He recruits a timid, brilliant forger to design the notes and uses his showman's flair to sell the public on the concept, to great excitement and considerable establishment alarm. Cosmo Lavish schemes relentlessly to have him removed and the bank seized for the family. Worse, a rogue from Moist's criminal past resurfaces, a blackmailer posing as a priest, who recognizes the respectable new banker and threatens to reveal exactly who he used to be.

Paper money takes off, but success breeds danger. A crisis builds over whether the bank's gold reserves are truly there, threatening a run that could collapse the whole enterprise and Moist with it. Cosmo's campaign against Moist grows stranger and more sinister as his private obsession with power, and with imitating Lord Vetinari himself, tightens its grip on him. The blackmailer presses harder, and Mr. Bent, the man who has never made a mistake, is pushed toward a breaking point as everything he believes about money and about himself is called into question. Moist, juggling all of it with his usual improvisation, needs something extraordinary to make the numbers real before the city loses its nerve.

The crisis resolves in Moist's favour. Adora Belle returns from her expedition with a staggering find: thousands of ancient golden golems, a treasure whose sheer value can quietly stand behind the new paper currency and answer every doubt about the bank's wealth. Cosmo Lavish, having pursued his fantasy of becoming Lord Vetinari to the point of wearing a ring so tight it poisons his hand, finally collapses into full delusion, his plot ruined and himself destroyed by his own vanity. Mr. Bent confronts the past he had hidden beneath his rigid perfection, comes to terms with it, and returns to steady the bank. The blackmailer is disposed of and Moist's history stays buried. Paper money is established, Moist is confirmed as head of the bank and Master of the Mint, and a satisfied Vetinari is already contemplating handing him the city's tax office next.

Moist establishes paper money in Ankh-Morpork and, when the existence of the bank's gold reserves is thrown into doubt, resolves the crisis with the discovery Adora Belle brings home: thousands of ancient golden golems, an immense buried treasure whose value can quietly stand behind the new currency. Cosmo Lavish, whose obsession with becoming Lord Vetinari drove him to wear the Patrician's style and a too-tight ring until it poisoned his hand, collapses into delusion and is finished as a threat, his bid for the bank destroyed by his own vanity. Mr. Bent, the chief cashier, confronts and comes to terms with a hidden past he had buried under rigid correctness, and returns to steady the bank in its hour of need. The blackmailer Cribbins is disposed of, and Moist's secret history stays buried. Moist is confirmed as head of the Royal Bank and Master of the Mint, paper money is a success, and Lord Vetinari, satisfied, has already begun eyeing the city's tax office as Moist's next assignment.