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Nina Bawden’s Family Money is a page-turner with a threat lurking in the reader’s awareness. The tantalising irony of the story is that the main character has suffered amnesia after an ugly incident in which she intervened. She is only slowly becoming aware of the menace that is evident to the reader.

Fanny Pye in her novel is ageing and beset by children and their partners, eager to inherit the value of her London house. The house, once bought for a song, is now worth half a million. This intrigue, together with Fanny’s growing recall of events creates a compelling read.

Family Money was made into a four part television drama starring Claire Bloom and June Whitfield.

The sad irony is that Nina Bawden herself suffered events that, in several ways, resemble her own story, losing her husband in the Potters Bar rail crash in 2002 and subsequently suffering from amnesia.

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