Mortimer, John

The First Rumpole Omnibus (Rumpole)

The Second Rumpole Omnibus (Rumpole)

The Third Rumpole Omnibus (Rumpole)

This compilation of witty mysteries captures John Mortimer's deft writing. Rumpole la Carte, a delightful discourse on the British legal system, takes us from a restaurant battle over Rumpole's mashed spuds to a confrontation with a detective-novelist on a ship. The zany yarns of Rumpole on Trial are ingenious: devil worshippers, Juvenile Court, a mysterious seductress searching for a barrister to defend her husband for a murder not yet committed, and courtroom strategies a little too lunatic force Rumpole to face the Disciplinary Committee of the Bar Council. Rumpole and the Angel of Death offers a comic commentary on cruelty to animals, human rights, and the fallibility of the justicesystem. The Third Rumpole Omnibus promises insight and laughter from the barrister who's "as much a detective as Sherlock Holmes or Herdule Poirot" (The Boston Sunday Globe).

• Over a million copies sold worldwide
• Rumpole was a popular program on PBS's Mystery! for many years

Rumpole and the Penge Bungalow Murders

The Rumpole renaissance continues to build, and now the beloved barrister's many followers have a special reason to rejoice: a sensational full-length Rumpole novel that at last relates the oft-mentioned but never revealed story of Rumpole's first case, the Penge Bungalow affair. Looking back half a century into a very different world, Rumpole recalls a man accused of murdering his father and his father's friend with a pistol taken from a dead German pilot. It was this trial and its outcome that put Rumpole on the map and shaped him into the cantankerous defender of justice that readers know and love. This is a must-read for every Rumpole fan and a compelling invitation to new readers.

Rumpole and the Reign of Terror

John MortimerÂ’s bestselling barrister is back, in his most timely case yet

Just in case Rumpole and the Penge Bungalow Murders gave fans the impression that the Great Defender was resting on his laurels, his new case sends him at full sail into our panicky new world. Rumpole is asked to defend a Pakistani doctor who has been imprisoned without charge or trial on suspicion of aiding Al Qaeda. Meanwhile, on the home front, She Who Must Be Obeyed is threatening to share her intimate view of her husband in a tell-all memoir. The result is Rumpole at his most ironic and indomitable, and John Mortimer at his most entertaining.

Rumpole Misbehaves: A Novel (Rumpole Novels)

Beloved and bestselling Rumpole is back to solve a new and peculiar mystery

Anti-Social Behavior Orders, commonly known as ASBOs, are the New Labour governmentÂ’s pride and joy. A child who plays or even loiters in an unfriendly street can, on the complaint of neighbors, have an ASBO slapped on him. If he offends again heÂ’ll be found in breach of his ASBO and thrown in jail without a trial. All this, of course, raises the wrath of everyoneÂ’s favorite barrister Horace Rumpole when he is called upon to defend a Timson child who has earned an ASBO for playing soccer on a posh street.

As Rumpole tries to get to the bottom of it all, his fellow barristers in chambers decide to highlight the ridiculousness of ASBOs by citing Rumpole for bringing food and his beloved wine into his room, and for causing global warming by lighting small cigars. Another witty tale sure to please the legions of Rumpole fans who eagerly await each new installment.

Rumpole Rests His Case

The comic, courageous, and corpulent Horace Rumpole reenters the fray in these seven fresh and funny stories in which the "great defender of muddled and sinful humanity" 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 poetry, and a nose equally sensitive to the whiff of wrongdoing and the bouquet of a Château Thames Embankment, the lovable and disheveled Rumpole "is at his rumpled best" (The New York Times).

Rumpole and the Primrose Path

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!

Rumpole for the Defense

Rumpole Rests His Case