Rumpole and the Reign of Terror - Hardcover

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.

*Starred Review* Mortimer expanded his Rumpole range from short story to novel form with Rumpole and the Penge Bungalow Murders in 2004. In this, the second full-scale Rumpole novel, Mortimer launches an all-out attack on Britain's Anti-Terror Act, which he characterizes as aiding and abetting terrorists by doing away with the hard-won rule of law. Rumpole's disturbing encounters with the devastations of the Anti-Terror Act come through his bread-and-butter connection with the Timsons, the criminal family who, through the years, has sought Rumpole for their defense. A distant Timson relative now comes to Rumpole. This woman is married to a Pakistani doctor who has been imprisoned on suspicion of terrorism. Rumpole's attempts to free this man are met with horror from Rumpole's wife ("She Who Must Be Obeyed"), disapproval from his colleagues at 4 Equity Court, and disavowal from the Timsons, who drop him as their QC of choice. Rumpole, reduced to offering advice at the Free Legal Clinic, pursues his client's right to a fair trial even as he battles his own doubts about the accused. All the usual Rumpolean marvels of language and characterization are here, with the addition of searing social commentary on racial prejudice and Britain's current government. A bracing, upsetting, inspiring David-and-Goliath Rumpole. Connie Fletcher
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved