Rumpole and the Primrose Path » (Reprint)

John Mortimer is a playwright, novelist, and former practicing barrister. He has written many scripts for screen and stage and three volumes of autobiography. He was knighted in 1998.

With Rumpole Rests His Case, legions of fans welcomed back the curmudgeonly London barrister they had loved for years—and they are eager for more. The six new stories in Rumpole and the Primrose Path find Horace Rumpole—despite a heart attack that left him at death's door in the previous volume—deftly parrying everything from the admonitions of his wife, Hilda, to the vagaries of his legal colleagues and their new director of marketing, Luci. With her cell phone, corporate jargon, glossy brochures, and plans to give their chambers a new image, Luci presumes Rumpole is soon to expire, and has been planning his memorial service. But the witty and irreverent Rumpole, sharp as ever, is far from hanging up his wig!

The Washington Post

I don't know exactly what it is that makes these books so satisfying; maybe it's that Rumpole feels dismissed and under-appreciated at every turn, that his own sense of self-esteem is both so sturdy and so fragile that he so loves to tell his stories even though the attention of his listeners falters. Maybe it's that he so enjoys his office, with all its petty gossip and foiled affairs. Or maybe it's because he loves his own work with a petulant, impatient love, that he knows he's crack at what he does -- defending low-life crooks -- whether the larger world appreciates him or not. — Carolyn See