Rumpole and the Penge Bungalow Murders (Rumpole of the Bailey)

Veteran watchers of the RUMPOLE OF THE BAILEY series on TV, or readers of the John Mortimer books, will know that the rumpled barrister keeps on referring to his long-ago success in the Penge Bungalow Murders as the calling card that validates his subsequently less distinguished career. Now at last, we get to hear the details of that case, which also coincides with his courtship by (not of) the formidable Hilda Wystan, who throughout their long marriage he would always refer to as "She Who Must Be Obeyed." All this is told in retrospect, between glimpses of his more familiar later life in chambers, with cameos from such familiar figures as Soapy Sam Ballard and Claude Erskine-Browne.

Listeners unfamiliar with the television series need not worry being left behind, and those like me with fond memories of particular actors should not think that the audio version will be a pale shadow, because of the superb reading by Bill Wallis. He is such a master of accents and timing that he creates a vast range of characters that come so instantly alive that you could not imagine them in any other way. I cannot recall any audiobook narrator who has delighted me more.

Rumpole is a newly-qualified barrister who is more or less kickng his heels in the chambers of the distinguished C. H. Wystan, Hilda's father. When two former RAF officers are found shot in their identical bungalows in Penge (an undistinguished suburb in South London), and the son of one of them is arrested for the crime, Hilda persuades her father to take Rumpole on as his junior for the defence. It is of course understood that Rumpole's job is to take notes and shut up. But when it becomes clear that Wystan thinks the case is unwinnable and proposes merely to go through the motions, Rumpole is outraged and begins making some investigations of his own. And when he manages to score a few telling points during a supposedly routine procedure that he is permitted to conduct on his own, he finds himself at odds with his principal, who could make or break his entire career.

As a mystery, this is surprisingly satisfactory, turning on secrets that stem from the terrors of WW2. Perhaps there are a few too many unsupported leaps of the imagination, perhaps the listener guesses the solution a little too soon, but one does not read a Rumpole book primarily as a whodunnit. Instead you read for character, for comedy, and above all for Rumpole's voice, whether he is mulling some sharp put-down of a superior, or quoting the masterpieces of English literature. And those qualities Bill Wallis renders to perfection.