Horace Rumpole, the irreverent, iconoclastic, claret-swilling, poetry-spouting barrister at law, is among the most beloved characters of English crime literature. He is not a particularly gifted attorney, nor is he particularly fond of the law by courts if it comes to that, but he'd rather be swinging at a case than bowing to his wife Hilda, She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed. In this first title of the popular series featuring Rumpole, all of the major characters...

A treasury of fourteen favorite tales featuring the cigar-chomping, cheap-wine-tippling barrister husband of She Who Must Be Obeyed is complemented by an unfinished fragment of a new story.

After ten straight losses under the satanic Judge Bullingham, Rumpole decides it's time to hang up his wig-permanently. But when he reads of the Notting Hill Gate Underground murder, he goes from being bored with his new life, to just plain homesick. So, Bullingham notwithstanding, Rumpole makes his return.