From Publishers Weekly
In Rumpole's last outing, Rumpole Rests His Case (2002), Mortimer's beloved barrister suffered a near-fatal heart attack, but as shown in this delicious new story collection, Rumpole still has plenty of life left, despite the preparations some of his blithely insensitive colleagues in chambers make for his imminent demise. In the ingenious title tale, which has been nominated for an Edgar, Rumpole is recuperating in the Primrose Path Home, until the mysterious death of an elderly fellow patient prompts him to slip back to London, where he soon figures out that there's something fishy afoot at his former rest home. The five other entries offer puzzles nearly as clever, though in one story, in which a juror turns out to know someone connected to a murder case, the apparent lack of a voir dire process for screening jurors may strike some readers as odd. As always, however, it is the character of Rumpole and his supporting cast, headed by wife Hilda ("She Who Must Be Obeyed"), that provides such pleasure, along with a perfectly crafted style that owes much to P.G. Wodehouse. If at times the bumbling Rumpole, like Bertie Wooster, must suffer one comic humiliation after another, let it not be forgot that Rumpole, unlike Bertie, is a competent professional who operates in a recognizably real and often nasty contemporary world. May he, as his wife so confidently assumes over their anniversary dinner in the uplifting final story, "Rumpole Redeemed," be back for more legal escapades next year.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
*Starred Review* The past decade has been a bit bumpy for fans of the irascible, keen-witted criminal defense barrister Rumpole. First, fans had to wait six years before
Rumpole Rests His Case appeared in 2002, and then, when Rumpole suffered a heart attack at the end of the novel, it seemed that he might really be hanging up his horsehair wig for good and pleading his case before the Ultimate Judge. (The real-life death of character actor Leo McKern, for whom Mortimer designed the Rumpole stories, lent further credence to this theory.) Clearly, Rumpole fans have needed some good news, and here it is. Bring out the Chateau Thames Embankment and toast the return of the barrister from near-death and from the clutches of the Primrose Path convalescent home, back to his chambers, the Old Bailey, back to his beloved Timson crime family, to his less beloved "She Who Must Be Obeyed," and, of course, to Pomeroy's Wine Bar. These six new stories showcase everything that is great and good in this long-running series: the sly characterizations of the denizens of Equity Chambers and the Old Bailey; Rumpole's crabby take on change and his incisive wit; and Mortimer's deft plotting. Rumpole takes on a Fagin-like pickpocket on the tube, a murderous nursing-home plot, the new marketing director for Chambers, and the powerful She Who Must Be Obeyed, along with the usual unsavory criminals he loves to defend. This new Rumpole is clearly cause for celebration.
Connie FletcherCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
