Rumpole keeps to solitary path

Rumpole and the Primrose PathBy Sir John MortimerViking, 16.99Neil Rose

As many a judge in the Old Bailey has found over the years, there is no stopping Horace Rumpole.

Less than a year after it seemed as though the bar's oldest junior had hung up his wig for good in Rumpole Rests His Case, he is back fighting fit and casting off the pall of tiredness and regret that stalked his last outing.

Rumpole and the Primrose Path, despite its weak name, sees the old boy back in harness in surprisingly feisty fashion, most memorably in the middle of a very topical right-to- privacy case.

And while the twist in some of the stories is too obvious or relies on outrageous coincidence - such as the chambers' new head of marketing holding the key to one case through her experience at a job in Leeds - there is much to enjoy.

Some of the usual and always-entertaining support cast are much in evidence, especially Soapy Sam Ballard and Claude Erskine-Brown, but others, sadly, are not - there is no Guthrie Featherstone dithering in the background, or Mizz Liz Probert lending a radical hand.

Indeed, being picky, there is not enough of the usual deft internal chambers politics.

Rumpole is something of a dying breed both in the legal profession and in the literary world, where he is possibly the only remaining flagbearer of the serial book driven by a single character.

That would no doubt delight both him and his creator, so it would be no surprise to see Rumpole again raise a glass of Pommeroy's Chateau Thames Embankment and recall with such pleasure the Penge Bungalows murder case he made his name winning - as always - alone and without a leader.