John Mortimer

Advantages: Funny, honest and thoroughly entertaining
Disadvantages: Memoirs are split into two books

...Murderers and Other Friends is the second part of John Mortimer's memoirs, the first being Clinging to the Wreckage. Now I remember reading this book on holiday nine years ago and being thoroughly entertained and oblivious to the fact that this was the second part of two books. In my stupidity I assumed he launched into the most exciting part of his life first and gave us snippets of his youth throughout the book. Only upon reading for a second time did I see (on page 122) a reference to the first part of his memoirs. When you read the book you can realise how easy it is to make this mistake as the book is not your average autobiography and John Mortimer is not your average author. We all know John Mortimer for his Rumpole of the Bailey TV series, but his credentials stretch far and wide; he is a novelist, playwright and a retired... Read review

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Advantages: Witty, lighthearted view of the law
Disadvantages: Too short

...It was Mark Twain who uttered the words "Rumours of my death are greatly exaggerated", but had he not done so, I'm sure that Sir John Mortimer would have used them as the opening line to this collection of six short stories, featuring Horace Rumpole, elderly defence barrister of Equity Court and long-time saviour of the petty criminal classes. Following on from Rumpole Rests His Case, which looked at the time as though it might have been the last ever Rumpole book, Horace finds himself unexpectedly residing at Primrose Path, a nursing home in deepest Sussex, recovering from, in his words, "a dramatic failure in the ticker department", an event which prompts his over-zealous colleagues in Chambers to convene a meeting to discuss the arrangements for his memorial service. A somewhat premature gesture of course, since Rumpole isn... Read review

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Advantages: Enjoyable, realistic story
Disadvantages: Rather slow beginning

...Introduction This is the first John Mortimer book I have read, and having never seen the TV series starring Leo McKern, I didn't really know what to expect. After a slightly slow start, my mind was quickly made up and I look forward very much to reading more. Although the book describes Rumpole's first major case (for those of you who don't know, Rumpole is a barrister), it is not the first in the series. Apparently throughout the series, the case of the Penge Bungalow murders is mentioned as Horace Rumpole's first major case, but the full facts were never told. In this book, published in 2005, Rumpole decides to write his memoirs, and so looks back to his youth to retell the story. The author John Mortimer, himself a barrister, is most famous for his books in the Rumpole series, although he has written other novels and plays and has... Read review

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