His job is to secure a 'not guilty', and this he does with extreme regularity, even if it means antagonizing judges, refusing to make deals, or uncovering more than his client would prefer revealed in court. Despite the detriment to his career, he never prosecutes. Yet Rumpole is his own man, and holds dearly to those rules he considers inviolate. And, like the Sherlock Holmes cycle, sometimes no crime has really been committed at all.

Although ostensibly mysteries in many cases, the cases he undertakes are very unlike the standard Whodunnit, Agatha Christie murder mystery - in some cases, Rumpole's task is merely to prove how his client didn't commit the crime (more often assault, fraud or theft than out-and-out murder) rather than ferret out the true culprit (although he frequently does so anyway). Rider Haggard novel She one of Rumpole's simple vices is a love of English literature. At home, he has to endure the well-meaning haranguing of his wife, semi-affectionately referred to by Horace as 'She Who Must Be Obeyed', a reference to the H.

Despite his successes, he is something of an embarrassment to his class-conscious chambers. Rumpole's unhealthy personal habits, disdain for societal expectation, and general sharp-tongued iconoclasm earn him few marks among his peers or family. Horace Rumpole, My Lord, appearing for the defendant.Ī Thames Television production for ITV series, intermittently from 1978 to 1992, following an episode of The BBC's Play for Today, focused on the professional and personal life of one Horace Rumpole, barrister at law (played by Leo McKern).

Rumpole books