The cover of this collection boasts a striking claim by P. D. James: ‘Rumpole, like Jeeves and Sherlock Holmes, is immortal.’ But will Rumpole’s world endure with Baker Street and Totleigh Towers?
The cover of this collection boasts a striking claim by P. D. James: ‘Rumpole, like Jeeves and Sherlock Holmes, is immortal.’ But will Rumpole’s world endure with Baker Street and Totleigh Towers?
The case in favour rests partly on the similarities. All three are first-person, multi-story narratives. In each, the forces of darkness are painted with gothic panache — Moriarty, Sir Watkyn Bassett and, in Rumpole’s case, most of Her Majesty’s judiciary, including, in the two best stories in this volume, Mr Justice Graves (or, as Rumpole would have him, Mr Injustice Gravestone). In each the hero finds solace in ritual comforts — for cocaine and violin, and Jeeves’ patent pick-me-up, read Pommeroy’s plonk and the works of Wordsworth.
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