The Barnes & Noble Review
Good old Rumpole is back, and he's in fine form, getting off petty criminals, doing his best for those bent on self-destruction, and solving crimes…all while battling his wife (the terrifying She Who Must Be Obeyed). This new volume includes seven engaging stories as Rumpole takes on the issue of whether or not to have a "talk pit" in the living room, fights a losing battle over civil rights (smoking has been banned in Chambers), and deals with a collection of unhelpful clients: these include a refugee Afghan physician who would rather not appear at his asylum hearing; a man who doesn't seem surprised when the body of his long-dead wife turns up under the floorboards; and a death-on-drugs politician who turns up on the front page of the tabloids smoking a huge joint. And, when the beloved barrister is not busy defending the innocent (and not so innocent), Rumpole tries his hand at a spot of blackmail, saves the Erskine-Browns' marriage, and unmasks a werewolf. These seven new stories showcase author John Mortimer at his best. Horace Rumpole narrates his cases with charm, wit, and not a little self-congratulation, and that all adds up to a verdict of Most Enjoyable. Sue Stone
After a hiatus of six years, Horace Rumpole emerges once again in a cloud of smoke, wiping butter from his chin after a cutthroat breakfast with She Who Must Be Obeyed at Froxbury Mansions, to wrestle with the forces of justice down at the Old Bailey. As he himself would be the first to admit, Rumpole is growing long in the tooth, but his wit has not deserted him; indeed, it seems to have cleaved onto his person, like his yellowing wig. Almost half the stories here involve the mayhem that ensues when elderly gentlemen succumb to the urging of their addled hearts. Not Rumple, though, who, as ever, sees through a glass of Château Thames Embankment darkly. Mortimer is in high form here. Is this to be the last of Rumpole? Perish the thought.
Mortimer's many fans on both sides of the Atlantic will delight in Horace Rumpole's return after a six-year hiatus in this amusing collection of the gruff but lovable barrister's latest exploits. The familiar cheroot-puffing, claret-quaffing denizen of Old Bailey now faces the challenges of a new millennium-including illegal aliens, drug-dealing and fraudulent e-mails-as he defends a series of peculiar clients. In "Rumpole and the Old Familiar Faces," Horace laments his reunion with a former blackmailer, now turned lord of the manor, whom Horace persuades to donate ill-gotten gains for the restoration of a church steeple. "Rumpole and the Asylum Seekers" has the barrister teamed up with an Afghan doctor who smuggled himself to England in a crate of chutney and now faces prison and torture if he is sent home. In the case of "Rumpole and the Camberwell Carrot," he rescues the career of a controversial politician branded with drug-use allegations by a seductive tabloid reporter. Next, in "Rumpole and the Teenage Werewolf," he comes to the aid of an alleged stalker whose e-mail address has somehow been usurped to harass a young coed. A courtroom collapse almost finishes his career in the title story, when wife Hilda ("She Who Must Be Obeyed") tries to keep him around their Froxbury Mansion flat ("decidedly not a mansion," regrets Horace) to help with the shopping. Using fade-ins for quick scene changes reminiscent of the popular PBS series Rumpole of the Bailey, Mortimer proves his wit is as sharp as ever; he and his hero deserve a hearty welcome back. (Nov. 25) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
Everyone's favorite barrister, back in chambers after an absence of six years (Rumpole and the Angel of Death, 1996, etc.), proves once more that you don't need much in the way of mystery to provide rollicking legal entertainment. In fact, the one time Rumpole flirts most openly with traditional mystery-mongering, his defense of a teenaged computer geek accused of molesting his childhood friend, the solution is painfully obvious. The other six stories here are variously triumphant comedies of the proletarian last-chance defender's extended family. Soapy Sam Ballard, the head of chambers, turns out to have an awkward secret in his past that Rumpole plans to leverage into permission to smoke his beloved cheroots. Claude Erskine-Brown's philandering, continuing into his marriage, places Rumpole in the unaccustomed position of domestic advocate for his witless colleague. Dogged investigator Fig Newton shadows a mysterious man to a rendezvous with Mrs. Justice Phillida Erskine-Brown. Rumpole takes the case of a physician pleading with curious detachment for political asylum and an actor whose penchant for overripe performance doesn't stop when he takes the stand. Familiar but unloved faces from the past resurface, each with unwholesome designs on the scruffy champion of the very, very guilty everyone would rather brief than a proper barrister. The only real disappointment is the title story, which sends Rumpole on what may be a one-way trip to hospital. If it turns out to be his swan song, it's an unusually muted performance, quite apart from the sorrow of thinking it might be his last.
