Making Money, Terry Pratchett

Only in Ankh-Morpork would Lord Vetinari solve the problem of his conman of choice's boredom at the Post Office by putting him in charge of the Royal Bank and Mint. I mean why not a self-declared, out and out conman, known to his boss Vetinari for exactly what he is, in charge of the central banking system. Why not indeed. After all Moist von Lipwig somehow managed to turn the Post Office into a thriving business, no longer in need of his guidance, even the Clacks are continuing apace, despite being the Post Office's main competition. von Lipwig as a banker, and chief walker of the Chairman of the Board, makes sense. To somebody, somewhere. It certainly made for a lot of laughs as he works our how a Mint can possibly be losing money, what it is lurking around in the cellars, and the best times to walk the Chairman, all the while dealing with a Golem with a bit of an identity crisis, and a chief cashier who is almost certainly, probably, a vampire.

Terry Pratchett does the Banking / Financial system in other words. With his normal, inimitable style, when it comes to von Lipwig, involving quite a bit of rushing about, a fair amount of daring doing, some life-threatening moments, a cross-dressing Golem and a banking system that definitely needed a good dusting off, and the obligatory barking mad opponent of the Patrician, in the personage of Cosmo Lavish. One of the all time incompetent, barking mad, persistent "villains" you're going to come across in quite a while.

Following on from GOING POSTAL, MAKING MONEY really sets the character and styling of Moist von Lipwig firmly in place. There's a similar sort of concept at the heart of both novels, but the methodology, outcomes and .... obstacles ... are different here, as is the sense of jeopardy. Loved listening to this one - the capers made me laugh out loud at lot.