Tato série se ponořuje do životů a vzpomínek trojice protikladných postav v kontextu úpadku Britského impéria. S neomylným vtipem a lidskostí autorka vykresluje portrét stárnutí, přátelství a nevyhnutelných zklamání i útěch, které s sebou život přináší. Příběhy jsou vyprávěny z různých perspektiv, odhalují složitost vztahů a nečekané vzpomínky, které formují naše poslední léta. Jedná se o dojemné zamyšlení nad tím, jak si vybíráme, co si s sebou vezmeme na cestu k soumraku života.
Old Filth was a "child of the raj". His earliest memories are of his amah, a teenage Malay girl. But soon he is torn away from the only person who loves him and sent to be educated at "home", where he is boarded out with strangers. What is the terrible secret the children shared? What happened at the farmhouse in the Lake District?
Filth (Failed in London, try Hong Kong) is a successful lawyer when he marries Elisabeth in Hong Kong soon after the War. Reserved, immaculate and courteous, Filth finds it hard to demonstrate his emotions. But Elisabeth is different - a free spirit. She was brought up in the Japanese Internment Camps, which killed both her parents but left her with a lust for survival and an affinity with the Far East. No wonder she is attracted to Filth's hated rival at the Bar - the brash, forceful Veneering. Veneering has a Chinese wife and an adored son - and no difficulty whatsoever in demonstrating his emotions ...How Elisabeth turns into Betty and whether she remains loyal to stolid Filth or is swept up by caddish Veneering, makes for a page-turning plot in a perfect novel which is full of surprises and revelations, as well as the humour and eccentricites for which Jane Gardam's writing is famous.
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