Other People's Money, By Justin Cartwright

From Dickens and Trollope to Tom Wolfe and Sebastian Faulks, credit-crunch lit has featured some unpleasant financiers.

In this comedy of errors, Justin Cartwright, a novelist who works in shades of grey, makes sure that the bankers are just as good and evil as the characters around them.

The novel opens with the approaching death after a stroke of Sir Harry Trevelyan-Tubal, head of one of the City's oldest banks. His son Julian has allowed the bank's "hedgies" free rein.

It's not these thugs who are going to bring down the bank, however, but Artair MacCleod, the ex-husband of Harry's trophy wife, who spends his days putting on regional children's theatre productions. Caustic and entertaining, this satire counts the cost of being human.