This volume contains twenty tales featuring beloved barrister Horace Rumpole as he turns down another invitation to exchange the joys and sorrows of life as an Old Bailey hack for the delights of the Sunshine State — where senior citizens loll on beaches and the sarcastic tones of the Mad Bull (Judge Roger Bullingham) are heard no more. Instead, Rumpole settles for the beaded bubbles of Château Pommeroy’s ordinary claret, and his rôle extraordinaire as Defender of the Faith: "Never Plead Guilty."

"Mortimer has created one of the legendary fictional detectives . . . a barrister [who’s] as much a detective as Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot." — The Boston Sunday Globe

"Wonderfully amusing . . . full of pithy writing . . . witty and opinionated." — The Wall Street Journal