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16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Not funny!, April 14, 2006
This review is from: Quite Honestly (Hardcover)
I have been a big Rumpole fan every since the PBS series, and I thought I'd give one of Mortimer's other books a try. If he could strike gold with Horace Rumpole, why not with Lucy Purefoy? Unfortunately, no such luck.
Lucinda Purefoy is a bishop's daughter recently graduated from college. She takes an advertising job, but something is missing, so she decides to volunteer for an organization called SCRAP, Social Carers, Reformers and Praeceptors, who help former prisoners readjust to society. That's how she meets Terry Keegan who's just done four years for breaking and entering. They fall in love.
The conflict begins when Terry tries to explain to Lucy why he got into burglary in the first place. "It's not for the money," he says, "It's the excitement." She wants to get closer to Terry so she decides to try it for herself. She begins by shoplifting. When Terry finds out about it, the roles are reversed. Now he's the one trying to get her to go straight.
When Terry looks down his nose at her trivial efforts, she decides to increase the stakes. There lies the problem with the book. It's just not believable; it reads more like Bridget Jones's Diary than a crime caper. I would imagine Mortimer was trying to lampoon do-gooders here, but Lucy is such a dim bulb that the reader is constantly telling himself, "She can't be serious!"
The minor characters are worse. Lucy's father the bishop is more liberal than Teddy Kennedy. When he finds out Lucy is sleeping with Terry, he's all for it. Also, when the leader of SCRAP resigns, they solicit Terry's criminal overseer, Chippy McGrath, to take his place. Mr. Markby, Terry's parole officer, is just as clueless. These people just don't measure up to the Rumpole characters. Somebody should have had the courage to tell this to Mr. Mortimer.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A quick-reading hoot full of eccentric characters, May 19, 2006
This review is from: Quite Honestly (Hardcover)
Lucy Purefoy, a confessed do-gooder, joins SCRAP (Social Carers, Reformers and Praeceptors), eager to help criminals rejoin society and become vital, working, happy parts of it. Her first and --- it turns out --- only charge, Terry Keegan, wants none of Lucy nor of SCRAP. He's finally won his freedom and vows to leave everything about "the system" behind. When he walks out of those prison doors, he has a little money in his pocket and a pretty good idea of where he wants to go, and it most definitely has nothing to do with Ms. Lucy Purefoy. His Aunt Dot always did quite well by him, so why not make a fresh start from there? Sadly, no one told Terry that Aunt Dot passed away during the three years he was off paying his debt to society.
A bit desperate, Terry calls on his old buddy and partner --- or ex-partner --- in crime, Leonard "Chippy" McGrath, hoping to room with him just until he can get back on his feet. Unfortunately, Terry discovers that Chippy hasn't changed one iota since their days working together, and when Terry turns down Chippy's offer to join his cadre of B&E specialists, he finds himself back on the streets, stripped of his cash and his hopes of a bed for the night. With the whole idea of independence looking more and more difficult, Terry decides that the enthusiastic Ms. Purefoy might be able to help after all --- just this once.
Naturally, the good-doing Lucy is ecstatic to have a real criminal to reform, especially after all those dull weeks spent in training. Excited that Terry has responded to her efforts, she redoubles her energies to find him a suitable place to live and lands him a legitimate job. Quite honestly, Lucy thinks, it's so simple.
In order to most effectively help Terry, Lucy decides she needs to fully understand him, so she embarks on an ambitious plan to do so. She's a hands-on kind of gal. And you could say she goes beyond the call of duty. Way beyond. Maybe it's her naiveté, having grown up the daughter of a Bishop, or her wide-eyed belief that people are basically good, just in need of a break and a little faith. Whatever, Lucy learns more than she bargained for about a life of crime.
Full of eccentric characters --- Lucy's father, a bishop whose modern interpretations of the church's teachings include tolerance for extramarital sex and gay marriages; Terry's cohort, the appropriately named Screwtop (unhappily, a reference to his brain function); Lucy's ex-boyfriends, a motley group of eccentric winners and big-time losers; and a romantically inclined prison matron with a hopeful roving eye --- QUITE HONESTLY is a quick-reading hoot.
--- Reviewed by Kate Ayers
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7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"Call it sad, call it funny, but it's better than even money, May 3, 2006
This review is from: Quite Honestly (Hardcover)
That the guy's only doing it for some doll."
From Frank Loesser's "Guys and Dolls". There is a Guys and Dolls like quality to John Mortimer's new book "Quite Honestly", but with a twist. In John Mortimer's world of criminals and those who would seek to redeem them it's better than even money that the doll's only doing it for some guy.
The "guy" in this instance is Terry Keegan. He's a youthful offender newly released from prison. The "doll" is Lucinda Purefoy. The daughter of a very liberal Anglican (Episcopalian) Bishop and recent graduate of Manchester University (of which I am a proud alumnus). In a rather rash career move she is recruited to join an association dedicated to the rehabilitation of Britain's prison population, "Social Carers, Reformer and Praeceptors" known to all as SCRAP.
Terry is Lucinda's first assignment and from the beginning we see that things will not necessarily turn out quite the way Lucinda envisions things. The story is told in the voices of both Terry and Lucinda in successive chapters. It is a very neatly drawn point/counter-point process. First we hear Terry's account of their first meeting, then Lucinda's, and so on.
The plot hook for "Quite Honestly" is a simple one: will Lucinda succeed in her planned redemption of Terry. For Mortimer at least it seems the road to hell and maybe to love (if there is any difference between the two) is indeed paved with good intentions. Along the way we are treated to some of Mortimer's typically humorous and insightful writing. Mortimer's wry asides about Lucinda's father the bishop and the Anglican Church (ground Mortimer has trod before in his Rapstone Chronicles series) are humorous in principal part because they seem so on target. As you would expect from someone who has given us Rumpole and characters such as Peanuts Molloy and Tony Timson, the words and thoughts we see coming from Terry are also funny, the more so because they seem to ring so true. The story takes twists that may or may not be expected and Mortimer adds a layer of absurdity that somehow makes these unexpected twists somehow seem rational. It is hard to believe, of course, that people can act the way Lucinda does but I don't think Mortimer is engaged in writing a realistic `noir' crime story. His aim is to entertain and as long as one doesn't expect super-realism I don't think they will be disappointed.
John Mortimer's "Quite Honestly" was fun to read. While it may not be the best piece of writing he's ever done, it is still a cut above most of what you might find in the front shelves of your local book store. The characters are not quite as fully formed as fans of Rumpole may have come to expect. However, those characters developed over time and over many stories and here we have a relatively short novel (about 205 pages) that brings us protagonists with a clean slate. I think as long as you go in without expecting it to be quite as masterful as the stories he has created for Rumpole you will enjoy "Quite Honestly".
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