The creator of Rumpole of the Bailey returns to the novel with a comic tale of middle-class do-gooding gone awry
Thousands of readers have discovered the inimitable voice of John Mortimer through his Rumpole series of stories. But with Quite Honestly, Mortimer creates a cast of characters that rivals his usual Rumpole repertoire, delivering a wonderfully comic novel, packed with entertaining reflections on a life in crime.
Life couldnt be better for Lucinda Purefoy. Shes got a steady boyfriend, a degree in social sciences from Manchester University, and the offer of a high-powered job in advertising. With all this good fortune, isnt it appropriate for her to give something back to society?
With her newly minted membership in Social Carers, Reformers, and Praeceptors (SCRAP for short), an organization that recruits women to become the guides, philosophers, and friends to ex-convicts coming out of prison, Lucy finds herself standing outside the gates of Wormwood Scrubs waiting to greet a career burglar called Terry Keegan. What happens nextafter a short and hostile trip to Burger Kingconfounds expectations and produces a signature Mortimer tale full of wit and surprise.
From Publishers Weekly
The indomitable Mortimer (Rumpole and the Penge Bungalow Murders, etc.) is back with a new cast of quixotic characters. Lucinda Purefoy (Lucy), daughter of a liberal Anglican bishop and his gin-soaked wife, graduates from university with a hankering to repay her debt to society, so she joins SCRAP (Social Carers, Reformers and Praeceptors), a volunteer organization that pairs a do-gooder with a done-badder on release from prison. The idea is to ease the ex-con's transition into society. Or, as Lucy introduces herself to her "client" Terry Keegan, "I'm your guide and philosopher." Keegan, a young man from the wrong side of Ladbroke Grove, started pinching bottles of whiskey with his schoolmate Chippy when he was 12; now he's getting out of the big house after doing three years for breaking and entering. He knows his transition would be much easier without the likes of Lucy and sets out to lose her at the first opportunity. Complications ensue, especially when Chippy (now Leonard) McGrath, who has established a false front as an environmentally concerned businessman to disguise his thriving crime organization, enters the scene. Told in a nimble he-said, she-said format, the narrative cartwheels across all that is sanctimonious about prison reform for a delectable undoing of do-gooders. (Mar. 27)
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From Booklist
Novelist, playwright, and former barrister Mortimer departs from his hugely popular Rumpole series in this lively romp revolving around love and the criminal mind. Life is grand for Lucinda ("call me Lucy") Purefoy, who, equipped with a university degree, a dashing boyfriend, and the prospect of a lucrative job in advertising, thinks it's time to give something back to the world that has afforded her so much. She joins Social Carers, Reformers, and Praeceptors (best known by its dubious acronym, SCRAP), an organization that links high-minded women with lowly ex-cons. The first meeting between Lucy and her charge, Terry Keegan, doesn't go well; the curly-haired burglar greets her generosity with an ungrateful glare and then demands a trip to Burger King, where he downs one Whopper after another. But as time passes, the two have an unexpected effect on one another--for better and worse. Endearingly eccentric characters are Mortimer's cachet. Among them: reprobates "Screwtop" Parkinson and "Chippy" McGrath, who maintain the illusion of moral propriety through a succession of lucrative heists; Lucy's father, a beatific bishop who dispenses treacly truisms; and her feckless mother, more inclined to gin and tonics than chapter and verse. Quite Honestly is great fun from page 1--honestly. Allison Block
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