Rumpole and the Angel of Death

By: Sir John Mortimer

Narrated by: Bill Wallis

In this collection of Rumpole stories the comic, courageous, and corpulent 'great defender of muddled and sinful humanity' is joined by a winning cast of villains and victims in tales whose wry humour and sparkling wit deftly send up the legal system. In Rumpole and the Angel of Death our hero achieves resounding triumphs over the forces of prejudice and mean-mindedness. Rumpole and the Way through the Woods involves Rumpole in the world of hunters and the hunted, animal rights and human wrongs. In Rumpole and the Rights of Man, he finds at the European Court of Human Rights that international justice is as fallible as the domestic variety. And for the first time, Hilda, She Who Must Be Obeyed, tells a story all her own.

©1996 John Mortimer (P)2014 Audible, Inc.

Rumpole at his best

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

I avoided this audiobook for some time, put off by the inexplicable low assessment someone gave it - but Bill Wallis excels himself in this Rumpole volume. What an extraordinarily talented narrator. He can give warmth and depth to all the characters, male or female. And the stories are some of the very best in the series.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Rumpole is what I'd like every Englishman to be - witty and well-read, intolerant of injustice and pseudo-political correctness, wily and clever - and with a warmth that encompasses everyone, even the judges and fellow barristers who drive him to distraction.

Which scene was your favorite?

Poor Hilda who so nearly made a fool of herself - but who pulled back from the brink with the sort of wisdom and self-mockery that makes her a worthy consort to Rumpole after all.

Any additional comments?

I can't praise Bill Wallis too much as a narrator. How lovely that his voice lives on in all the books and stories whose authors were lucky enough to have him to bring them to such life.

One of the Top Ten Readers

The plots of the Rumpole books are not the most well crafted. As with the Jeeves books, these plots just set up the situations for the chief familiar characters to annoy, enrage, endear themselves to one another in a world that is probably very little like your own. But if you like Horace Rumpole, it’s because of his narrative voice. And if you like Rumpole’s curmudgeonly, literature-quoting, music hall humor-alluding voice, there is only one reader for these audiobooks and that reader is BILL WALLACE. I have painted porches, cleaned out cobwebby attics and found these solitary and tedious activities enjoyable thanks to Bill Wallace’s reading of the Rumpole books.

Bill Wallace IS Rumpole!

John Mortimer is my favorite author and, while Rumpole was written for the late, great Leo McKern, the late Bill Wallace is my favorite Rumpole by far ❤️ Rumpole and The Angel of Death is the best compilation of Rumpole tales I’ve found so far.

A little darker Rumpole

Another excellent collection featuring the wonderful characterizations of Bill Wallis. The stories have a somewhat darker caste than some earlier collections. Rumpole, never one with a rosy view of humanity, is faced with such issues as kidnap, terrorism, Alzheimer's, and euthanasia.
The highlight (and one of Mortimer's all-time bests) is surely "Hilda's Story", where She Who Must Be Obeyed emerges in her own words to show herself every bit her husband's equal, both in shrewdness and in curmudgeonly charm.