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Rumpole and the Reign of Terror
Rumpole and the Reign of Terror
Nov 29, 2025 5:29 PM

Author:John Mortimer

Rumpole and the Reign of Terror

Rumpole and the Reign of Terror - a delightful novel starring John Mortimer's iconic barrister

'Rumpole, like Jeeves and Sherlock Holmes, is immortal' P. D James, Mail on Sunday

'I thank heaven for small mercies. The first of these is Rumpole' Clive James, Observer

Justice isn't blind - it's just a little short sighted and weak around the knees ...

Just in case Rumpole and the Penge Bungalow Murders gave fans the impression that the Great Defender was resting on his laurels, his new case sends him at full sail into our panicky new world. Rumpole is asked to defend a Pakistani doctor who has been imprisoned without charge or trial on suspicion of aiding Al Qaeda. Meanwhile, on the home front, She Who Must Be Obeyed is threatening to share her intimate view of her husband in a tell-all memoir. The result is Rumpole at his most ironic and indomitable, and John Mortimer at his most entertaining.

This hilarious novel will be loved by fans of Rumpole and readers of Sherlock Holmes, P.D. James and P.G. Wodehouse.

Sir John Mortimer was a barrister, playwright and novelist. His fictional political trilogy of Paradise Postponed, Titmuss Regained and The Sound of Trumpets has recently been republished in Penguin Classics, together with Clinging to the Wreckage and his play A Voyage round My Father. His most famous creation was the barrister Horace Rumpole, who featured in four novels and around eighty short stories. His books in Penguin include: The Anti-social Behaviour of Horace Rumpole; The Collected Stories of Rumpole; The First Rumpole Omnibus; Rumpole and the Angel of Death; Rumpole and the Penge Bungalow Murders; Rumpole and the Primrose Path; Rumpole and the Reign of Terror; Rumpole and the Younger Generation; Rumpole at Christmas; Rumpole Rests His Case; The Second Rumpole Omnibus; Forever Rumpole; In Other Words; Quite Honestly and Summer's Lease.

Reviews

Brilliant...very funny

—— Sunday Telegraph

A painful, funny, humane novel: beautifully written, addictively readable and so confident

—— The Times

Wry, warm-hearted and entertaining

—— Charlotte Moore , Telegraph

Unforgettable

—— Daily Express

A witty and subtle family drama

—— Independent on Sunday

The writing is subtle, funny and refreshingly superior...Recommended for young urbanites

—— Andrew Morrod , Daily Mail

A delightful first novel about a young Indian called Mousumi visiting her sophisticated relations in London ... A coming-of-age story with a difference.

—— Oxford Times

Hugely gratifying in the way that only Cooper can be

—— Mail on Sunday

Triumphantly good

—— The Sunday Times

The prospect of Jilly's return, with a novel set in the glamorous international art world and promising "oodles of bad behaviour, intrigue, passion, tears and laughter", will surely cheer all but the most misanthropic

—— Bookseller

There is enough plot for several novels here (enough sex for dozens), all vividly conveyed in the author's excitable style... Her many fans will not be disappointed

—— Literary Review

This modern day mythical fantasy is Anne Rice on an epic scale, a hugely imagined world. A chiller thriller from cold of Russia, this one's been selling like hot cakes around the world

—— Sunday Sport
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