Last Orders (1996)

Last Orders follows a motley crew of friends and near-relatives of the recently passed-away Jack Dodds, a Bermondsey butcher’s shop owner. They’re tasked by Jack’s widow Amy with scattering his ashes in Margate. Amy herself isn’t attending, for reasons that are explored in flashback as the novel unfolds, alongside the crew’s somewhat ramshackle journey out of London and through Kent, filled with arguments, detours, pubs, and reflections on life, death and relationships.