Shortlisted for the 2014 Folio Prize Old Filth & The Man in the Wooden Hat told with bristling tenderness & black humour the stories of that Titan of the Hong Kong law courts Old Filth QC & his clever misunderstood wife Betty Last Friends the final volume of this trilogy picks up with Terence Veneering Filth's great rival in work &
- 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 & a devoted local girl he escapes the war to emerge in the Far East as a man of panache success & fame But always at the stuffy English Bar he is treated with suspicion where did this blond louche brilliant Slav come from? Veneering Filth & their friends tell a tale of love friendship grace the bittersweet experiences of a now-forgotten Empire & the disappointments & consolations of age