Rumpole’s seasonal cheer

Music fans may groan at the glut of greatest hit collections clogging up shelves at this time of year. Bookshelves are usually immune from such compilations, though the odd one slips through. In this case, it’s a positive. Forever Rumpole: The Best of the Rumpole Stories brings together some of the most winsome of John Mortimer’s tales. With a healthy range, and stories breezy enough to tackle on a full stomach, it is a timely fireside companion.
 
The charm lies largely with Horace Rumpole, Mortimer’s caustic lawyer. With his waistcoat, cigars and fondness for a tipple or two, Rumpole takes his rightful place in the pop-fiction pantheon. The back jacket sees him compared with the usual list of suspects: Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Jeeves and Wooster, and, perhaps slightly optimistic this one, Mr Pickwick.
 
Rumpole is far worldlier than Wooster, and arguably even Jeeves, though the stories are similarly humourless.