Jane Gardam

The marriage of Edward Feathers and Betty as seen through the eyes of Edward's friend and Betty's lover Terry Veneering in the third book in the Old Filth trilogy ("Old Filth," "The Man in the Wooden Hat," "Last Friends").

Last Friends

Cindy Lieberman

'Like Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, the Old Filth trilogy restores us to an era rich in spectacle and bristling with insinuation and intrigue' Boston Globe 'Sharp, humane, generous and wonderfully funny, she is one of our very finest writers' Hilary Mantel Shortlisted for the 2014 Folio Prize. Old Filth and The Man in the Wooden Hat told with bristling tenderness and black humour the stories of that Titan of the Hong Kong law courts, Old Filth QC, and his clever, misunderstood wife Betty. Last Friends, the final volume of this trilogy, picks up with Terence Veneering, Filth's great rival in work and - though it was never spoken of - in love. Veneering's were not the usual beginnings of an establishment silk: the son of a Russian acrobat marooned in northeast England and a devoted local girl, he escapes the war to emerge in the Far East as a man of panache, success and fame. But, always, at the stuffy English Bar he is treated with suspicion: where did this blond, louche, brilliant Slav come from? Veneering, Filth and their friends tell a tale of love, friendship, grace, the bittersweet experiences of a now-forgotten Empire and the disappointments and consolations of age.

Last Friends

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