Past Imperfect by Julian Fellowes

The reluctant friend and narrator of the events that follow is supplied with a list of the five possible mothers of the lucky bastard — and, insulting though he finds it, a credit card with which to pay any little expenses on the way..

Past Imperfect contains eerie echoes of both Gosford Park, for which Julian Fellowes wrote the Oscar-winning screenplay, and his subsequent novel, Snobs. All three focus on the upper classes at their worst and all three have a paternity issue at their heart. The exciting thing about this new saga is that it moves back and forth between the imperfections of the Swinging Sixties and the muggings, binge-drinking and "celebrity" cult of the present day.

Into this wonky and precarious world strides the young, ambitious, good-looking visionary Damian Baxter. Boasting that he is "a perfectly ordinary boy from a perfectly ordinary home", this lower-middleclass lad gate-crashes the grandest balls, shows off, throws punches and seduces all the debs. Loved by the girls, hated by the men — one potential father-in-law calls him "a smarmy little oik & with his clothes from Marks and Spencer" — his adventures in high society end in catastrophe. We know that something absolutely terrible has happened in a villa in Portugal but don't get the grisly details till the last chapter. We also know, of course, that Damian Baxter will do wonderfully well in the end.

This semi-Proustian pursuit of lost times leads us into some bleak new worlds. We inspect the homes that the ex-debs live in now — one house is so untidy it looks as though a terrorist bomb has exploded in it — and meet some of the "mannerless toads" they have married. Spitting out crêpe suzette onto his plate, one horrible husband splutters, "What the hell is this made of ? Soap?" Scattered among these savage set-pieces — a drugs raid at a party at Madame Tussauds is another highlight — are hilariously authoritative mini-essays on changing toffdom, Royal Ascot, life peerages and deposed royalty. During the final tear-jerking "nightmare in the sun", Damian tells the chastened narrator that he is "a regular little toady, a Johnny-on-the-make, creeping and crawling like a bumboy".

A few pages later, we at last discover the unlikely identity of the mystery love child and how he, or she, was conceived. In the process, we have had a gloriously funny, bumpy ride through modern times..

Synopsis by Foyles.co.uk

Damian Baxter is hugely wealthy and dying. He lives alone in a big house in Surrey, looked after by a chauffeur, butler, cook and housemaid. He has but one concern - his fortune in excess of 500 million and who should inherit it on his death. PAST IMPERFECT is the story of a quest. Damian Barker wishes to know if he has a living heir. By the time he married in his late thirties he was sterile (the result of adult mumps), but what about before that unfortunate illness? He was not a virgin. Had he sired a child? A letter from a girlfriend from these times suggests he did. But the letter is anonymous. Damian contacts someone he knew from their days at university. He gives him a list of girls he slept with and sets him a task: find his heir!