Rumpole is back with us. In Rumpole and the Penge Bungalow Murders by John Mortimer (Viking, £16.99) Rumpole is writing his memoirs and looks back on his first murder case when, as a pupil in a lazy barristers’ chambers, he takes over the defence of a young man accused of murdering his father and his father’s closest wartime friend. The chambers are lead by C. H. Wystan, QC, the father of Hilda (She Who Must Be Obeyed), and the reader learns for the first time how Rumpole succumbs to her demands and marries her. Very funny it is too.
Henning Mankell appears to be getting bored with his policeman hero, the middle-aged, pessimistic Kurt Wallander. His previous novel, The Return of the Dancing Master, tried out a different, younger detective, and now, in Before the Frost (Harvill, £14.99), Wallander’s slightly tiresome daughter Linda takes a starring role.
Linda has decided to become a policewoman and joins the force in Ystad where her father works.
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