In the Money

The Tiernans' new wealth brings changes including a move to a country mansion and, for Paul, the tutoring he will need to get him into a grand private school. There is never any sense of his enjoyment of the change and when he encounters a starving servant girl from a past time he hears of the first owner of the house and his 'bad money' which chimes portentously with the present. There is much sharply observed detail to create atmosphere but there is little magic and, for all the potential of the past and the mysteries of the modern wealth, the story never quite takes flight.