Book Review: Money in the Bank by P.G. Wodehouse

Book Description:

When George, Viscount Uffenham turns the entire family fortune into diamonds and squirrels them away, naturally he forgets where he has hidden the loot and finds himself compelled to let the family seat to stay afloat. So it is that Mrs Cork's health colony comes into being, providing the perfect setting for crime and young love to flower.

My thoughts:
I read Money in the Bank by P.G. Wodehouse several years ago and when I was making my list for The Classics Club, I knew that would encourage me to reread it. Money in the Bank is a crazy story of missing diamonds that are being looked for my many people: Lord Uffenham who is disguised as the butler, Cakewalk, Dolly and Soapy Malloy - a very questionable pair, Chimp Twist who poses as J. Sheringham Adair, Private Investigator and Jeff Miller who is also posing as J. Sheringham Adair, Private Investigator.

Lord Uffingham's estate is being rented out by a Mrs Cork who run a health colony. Mrs Cork is a very formidable woman who doesn't take well to being crossed. Add in her nephew who is secretly engaged to Anne, Lord Uffenham's niece, and you have a story full of twists and turns, lots of laughter, plus a romance thrown in for good measure.

This is the second Wodehouse story I have read that features Dolly and Soapy Malloy and Chimp Twist and after just glancing at Amazon it looks like they may be featured in other books.

Money in the Bank is probably my favorite non-Jeeves book that I have read and I highly recommend it.

Some teasers:

Dolly Molloy quivered like a wounded deer. p. 22

Jeff would have preferred him not to allude to the divinest of her sex as his dashed niece, but he abstained from rebuke. Policy dictated a friendly and respectful attitude towards this old codger. p. 101

'Ah! said Chimp. 'That's just what I'm going to put you wise about. Start listening.' His visitors did so, with the alacrity which is always the result of mentioning diamonds to a certain type of auditor. When he had finished his narrative, Dolly's eyes were shining like stars, and Mr Molloy's breathing had become so stertorous the he resembled a Senator suffering from a troublesome attack of asthma. The news that they were residing in a sort of Tom Toddler's Ground or Cave of Ali Baba, where parcels of valuable diamonds might leap to the eye at any moment, had affected both of them profoundly. p. 112