[.ca] Rumpole Rests His Case (ISBN 0141003723)

From Amazon.com:
How much longer will readers be treated to new stories featuring irreverent and irascible London barrister Horace Rumpole? The character was created for British television in the 1970s by John Mortimer, who once said that he'd continue writing Rumpole tales only so long as actor Leo Kern could portray him on the tube. If Kern's death in July 2002 means that Rumpole Rests His Case is the beginning of the end, then at least this series concludes on a high and humorous note. The seven yarns collected here find the rumpled Rumpole defending his usual assortment of eccentric clients, while also fending off antismoking zealots, interior designers with a taste for lava lamps, and his domineering wife, Hilda ("known to me only as She Who Must Be Obeyed"). One story teams the elderly advocate with an elusive Afghan doctor who was smuggled into the U.K. in a crate of mango chutney, and now seeks to become a legal resident. In another, Rumpole investigates an assault, apparently committed by an unmanageable teenager with a poetic streak, while a third case has the barrister working for a hypocritical right-wing politician who, after first seducing away the wife of one of Rumpole's colleagues, is accused of a drug offense. Cleverest of all, though, is the title tale, in which a hospital-confined Rumpole builds the defense for one of his roommates, a "reformed" thief with an unlikely connection to the aged major who shot him during a residential break-in. With his own unreformed taste for claret and cheroots, Rumpole persists in being an entertaining, old-fashioned thorn in the silk-covered side of Britain's judicial system. Could somebody please tell Mortimer that it's too soon for this character to hang up his wig? --J. Kingston Pierce

The first new volume of Rumpole stories in six years:
Mortimer brings the first new volume of Rumpole stories in six years, returning the comic British legal defender to modern times with seven new, funny stories of his court appearances. Familiarity with prior Rumpole accounts is not required but will enhance enjoyment of this latest series of episodes.

Not quite up to standard:
Ahhh... Rumpole is back! I was delighted to see a new collection of short stories written by John Mortimer, even though Leo McKern had sadly passed away. However, this new collection is not quite up to the standards of Mortimer's other short stories. Perhaps it's because it's been six years since "Rumpole and the Angel of Death." These new stories feel a little off, like a poet trying to emulate another poet's works; it's close, but doesn't feel like the same old works. "Rumpole Rests his Case" isn't a terrible book, but it's not the best one of the series.

More Rumpole to Come:
For those who were asking if this would be the last Rumpole book, the answer happily in there is more to come. Rumpole and the Primrose Path has been published in the UK and Canada and presumably will be published here eventually!

Cheerio to Rumpole? Say it isnýt so!:
Rumpole fans, John Mortimer has rewarded us generously with seven new "thrills and spills in the life of an Old Bailey hack". Much of the usual line-up is present: wife Hilda (SWMBO), the Erskine-Browns (Claude and Phillida, formerly the Portia of Chambers), faithful solicitor Bonny Bernard, Soapy Sam Ballard (a/k/a Bonzo), Mizz Liz Probert, private eye Fig Newton, Mr. Justice Featherstone, and Judge Bullingham (the Mad Bull). The old spots and props are in place: Froxbury Mansions, 1 Equity Court, Pommeroy's Wine Bar, the Sheridan Club, cheroots, steak and kidney, and our old darling Horace's favorite plonk: Chateau Fleet Street, Chateau Thames Embankment and Pommeroy's Very Ordinary. The issues are timely. The laughs are plentiful. At one point Rumpole, while attempting to gather information is handed "the wet-ended stub" of a "fairly fat cigarette" which he accepts, "feeling that the information might peter out if I rejected it." In the last story("Rumpole Rests His Case,") John Mortimer seems to be saying Cheerio to Rumpole. Say it isn't so! Now that the remarkable Leo McKern is no longer with us, perhaps we should bite the bullet and accept the inevitable. But (dare I suggest it?) there is someone out there (British actor, Ian McNeice) who could do a proper Rumpole, I'm certain of it.

"rumpole rests his case" is NOT a new book:
I have not read ALL of the Rumpole books, and probably can't remember ALL that I HAVE read. BUT..of the seven stories in this book, called "seven fresh and funny stories", at least FOUR were in earlier Rumpole collections. So buy the book if you want to enjoy repetition; I admit the stories are good....but they were good the FIRST time.