If you’ve never read any of the Rumpole books, then you still have the chance to read one for the first time.
I don’t know what I expected when I read my first one. I think I was waiting for some sort of Jeeves story, but with barristers and wigs.
I love Wodehouse and Jeeves, but there is a limited time and place for that kind of mindless air-filled confection. Rumpole is also light and airy a lot of the time, but can be surprisingly dark all of a sudden. The legal and other problems are real, and Rumpole’s opinions are meaty and satisfyingly prickly.
[And it's set in today's world, and it has cussing when appropriate, and it's completely unlike Wodehouse in most important ways.]
Anyway, the last one has been written, and one copy sits (unread for the moment) on my bookshelf. John Mortimer is dead.
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