Rumpole and the Primrose Path Hardback - 2003

de Mortimer, John

With Rumpole Rests His Case, legions of fans welcomed back the curmudgeonly London barrister they had savored for years. In Rumpole and the Primrose Path's six new stories, Horace Rumpole, despite a heart attack that left him at death's door in the previous volume, deftly parries 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, and glossy brochures, hired to give their chambers a new image.

The title story finds him in a very dubious convalescent home battling a thin-lipped head nurse and befriending a junior one, Dotty. Though the death of an elderly patient is shrouded in secrecy, it is not until Rumpole is back in chambers that he learns of police suspicions-and of the murder charge against which he must defend young Dotty. Presuming Rumpole is soon to expire, Luci has been planning his memorial service, but the witty and irreverent Rumpole, sharp as ever, is far from hanging up his wig!