Last Friends (Old Filth Trilogy 3)

@2@@20@'Like Evelyn Waugh's@18@ Brideshead Revisited@19@, the Old Filth trilogy restores us to an era rich in spectacle and bristling with insinuation and intrigue' Boston Globe@21@@3@@2@@20@'Sharp, humane, generous and wonderfully funny, she is one of our very finest writers' Hilary Mantel@21@@16@@20@@21@@16@@20@Shortlisted for the 2014 Folio Prize.@21@@16@@18@@19@@16@@18@Old Filth@19@ and @18@The Man in the Wooden Hat@19@ 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. @18@Last Friends, @19@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. @3@@2@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? @3@@2@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.@3@