Synopses & Reviews
Fans old and new will welcome this brand-new volume in John Mortimer's hugely popular series-Horace Rumpole's first appearance in six years. The comic, courageous, and corpulent "great defender of muddled and sinful humanity" reenters the fray in a book that sends up the British legal system as deftly as ever.
Rumpole Rests His Case brings us seven fresh and funny stories in which Horace triumphs over the forces of prejudice and mean-mindedness while he tiptoes precariously through the domestic territory of his wife Hilda (She Who Must Be Obeyed).
With his passion for Wordsworth, his kindly disposition toward the defendant, and a nose equally sensitive to the whiff of wrongdoing and the bouquet of a Château Thames Embankment, the disheveled Rumpole is back and in impeccable form-perhaps for the last time?
Review
"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." Publishers Weekly
Review
"With Mortimer's greatly felicitous style and careful plotting, these stories are sheer, absolute reading pleasure. At one point in one story, She Who Must Be Obeyed snaps at Rumpole, 'You're not nearly so funny as you think you are.' Oh, but indeed he is!" Brad Hooper, Booklist
Review
"Everyone's favorite barrister...proves once more that you don't need much in the way of mystery to provide rollicking legal entertainment....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." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"As he himself would be the first to admit, Rumpole is growing long in the tooth, but his wit has not deserted him....Mortimer is in high form here. Is this to be the last of Rumpole? Perish the thought." The New Yorker
Review
"[T]he world-weariness of these seven short stories leaves even a dedicated admirer feeling a last bow may be just....Mortimer has always positioned his untamed beast of the Bar as an honorable anachronism, but never has he risen so far above his washed-out surroundings....Knighthood and vindication may be deserved, but a bottle of bargain claret will have to do." Zach Dundas, The Willamette Week (Portland, OR)
About the Author
John Mortimer is a playwright, novelist, and former practicing barrister who has written many film scripts as well as stage, radio, and television plays, the Rumpole plays, for which he received the British Academy Writer of the Year Award, and the adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited. He is the author of twelve collections of Rumpole stories and three acclaimed volumes of autobiography.