John Mortimer

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.

Five holiday tales feature the curmudgeon barrister in "Rumpole and Father Christmas," "Rumpole's Slimmed Down Christmas," "Rumpole and the Boy," "Rumpole and the Old Familiar Faces," and "Rumpole and the Christmas Break."

When one of the Timson children gets in trouble for playing football in the street, Rumpole takes it upon himself to defend their liberties in court.

"The minute she sets eyes on it, Molly Pargeter knows that the Tuscan villa she has found to lease is perfect for her family's summer holiday. She is powerfully drawn to its rustic beauty and to the enigma of its absentee landlord. Never mind that her husband and teenaged daughter are vocally unenthusiastic and that her outrageously extroverted father tricks them into taking him along."--Container.