Old Filth by Jane Gardam ***

Sylvia asked at Book Club if anyone had heard of this book, and lo and behold the very next night as I tucked myself into bed at Mildred's in Ottawa, there it was on her shelf! So I started to read it, found out it's the first book in a trilogy.

The title refers to a former judge in England who earned himself the nickname " Failed in London, Try Hong Kong", although we don't learn too much about this is this first novel. Filth, or Sir Edward Feathers, was a Raj Orphan, born in Malay to a woman who died two days after his birth, and a father who refused to acknowledge him, sent to England at a very young age, accompanied by a missionary, to be educated. 

This was an author whose name I had never heard before, and she's written some 17 novels!