Causing a crisis with other people’s money

Justin Cartwright’s novel Other People’s Money has been on the shelf for almost a year now. But as it is becoming increasingly clear that the financial crisis, which started in 2008 is far from over, that the worst might still lie ahead, and globally the anger is mounting, that those responsible are getting off scot-free, it might now be more than ever worth a read.

Other People’s Money tells the story of the upper-crust, family-owned bank of Tubal & Co, in the City of London, which finds itself in trouble. It's not the first time in its 340- year history, but it may be the last.

A secret sale is under way and a number of facts need to be kept hidden from the regulators and major clients. Masterminded by the bank's chairman, Julian Trevelyan-Tubal, hundreds of millions of pounds are being diverted – temporarily – to shore up the bank until it can be sold.

Julian's ageing father, Sir Harry, incapacitated by a stroke at the family villa in Antibes, would be horrified. He is still writing barely intelligible letters to Julian, which advise him to stick to the time-honoured traditions of the bank. Had his son taken his advice, the bank might still be solvent.

Inevitably great families have secrets; lovers, old partners, or retainers who resent not being part of the family. These all have a habit of turning awkward. When an alimony payment from the bank – disguised as a charitable donation – to an abandoned husband, the penniless-but-heroic actor-manager Artair MacCleod, fails to arrive and the initial trickle of doubt swells into a torrent of catastrophe for the family.

Other People's Money is a gripping and often hilarious story, an acutely delineated portrait of a world and a class.

What others say

The Daily Telegraph: “'Other People's Money is wise, droll and beautiful fiction. His (Cartwright’s) storytelling powers are so fluent and persuasive, the quality of his observation so fine’

The Spectator: “A high-class piece of literary entertainment.”

Financial Times: “A delicately patterned novel about the heroic search for happiness and its ultimate fragility. The comfortable middle-class setting and faintly fairytale ending belie a portrait of family life in which concealment and compromise are never far away. Quietly moving”

The Scotsman: “Cartwright is as accomplished as anyone writing fiction today … He makes the reader think and feel, one mark of a good novel. Other People's Money invites us to reflect on the way we live; and it's thoroughly enjoyable. What more can you ask for?”

The Evening Standard: “[A] brilliant snapshot of a country and class in terminal decline ... Historically, strictly speaking, Cartwright is a little behind the curve. The old City of privately owned banks, the old accepting houses, nearly all Jewish in origin, ended in the late Nineties ... Cartwright describes vividly, however, the family intrigues and mannerisms of the dying breed..."

The Literary Review: “Other People's Money is a thoroughly representative despatch from Planet Cartwright, which means that it is like the preceding 10, only a touch more so: a bit more preoccupied with its ‘Englishness’, its ailing fathers and their scheming heirs, its modern mythologising, its painful contrasts between 21^st century London and the debatable lands beyond”

Other People’s Money (ISBN9781408803882) is available in South Africa from www.kalahari.com/books at R166