Sir Harry Tubal, having had a stroke and retired to the family villa in the south of France, has left the reins of the family's elite private bank to his son Julian. Harry retains the services of his longtime secretary, now a septuagenarian herself, but has greater difficulty connecting to his sexually adventurous wife, Fleur.

When Artair Macleod, an actor manager and ex-husband to Fleur, discovers that his company's grant has not been paid by Tubal and Co., he goes to the bank in search of the money. He gets no answer from the Julian, and so goes to the local press; an eager young reporter begins asking questions. Bit by bit, the reporter discovers that the grant money is in fact a pay-off from Fleur, written off by the bank as a charitable donation, and a scandal breaks. Julian's alpha personality and poor judgment prove an especially bad fit for the economic forces of the era, and the family's business is plunged into chaos.

The story of Cartwright's latest novel is both cautionary and uncomfortably familiar. His tone, as always, is expansive and often profound. Though Old Money offers plenty of gallows humor, it is not a polemic but a story of morality and hubris, with the Tubal family ultimately just searching for peace. Bolder than To Heaven by Water and more timely than The Song Before It Is Sung, this is the most marketable book we've ever had from this prodigiously talented novelist.