Set between the wars in the chic upper-middle classes in and around London, A Handful Of Dust is full of horrible people doing horrible things to each other, but it adds up to a bitter indictment of human behaviour. And it's not all jokes. There's despair lurking beneath the brittle laughs, and sadness at the waste of potential. ... There's a plot point about reading Dickens that results in the darkest comedy, and perhaps a scathing statement about literature and civilization.