Rumpole and the Penge Bungalow Murders

The Rumpole renaissance continues to build, and now the beloved barrister’s many followers have a special reason to rejoice: a sensational full-length Rumpole novel that at last relates the oft-mentioned but never revealed story of Rumpole’s first case, the Penge Bungalow affair. Looking back half a century into a very different world, Rumpole recalls a man accused of murdering his father and his father’s friend with a pistol taken from a dead German pilot. It was this trial and its outcome that put Rumpole on the map and shaped him into the cantankerous defender of justice that readers know and love. This is a must-read for every Rumpole fan and a compelling invitation to new readers."A brilliant piece of work." —The New York Times Book Review

"Ambitious and substantial... cleverly conceived and highly satisfying." —Los Angeles Times

John Mortimer is a playwright, novelist, and former practicing barrister who has written many film scripts as well as stage, radio, and television plays, the Rumpole plays, for which he received the British Academy Writer of the Year Award, and the adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited. He is the author of twelve collections of Rumpole stories and three acclaimed volumes of autobiography.