The Sound of Trumpets

John Mortimer is perhaps best known for his beloved books featuring Horace Rumpole, that irreverent barrister and "great defender of muddled and sinful humanity." When he isn't skewering the British legal system, however, Mortimer keeps busy with the Rapstone Chronicles, set in the rough-and-tumble world of English politics. Titmuss Regained and Paradise Postponed followed the fortunes of cunning and avaricious Tory MP Leslie Titmuss as he rose to the heights of power under Margaret Thatcher, then was laid low when her government fell. At the beginning of this third novel in the series, the deposed Lord Titmuss has retired to his country home to lick his wounds and plot revenge against his own party, which he holds responsible for the Iron Lady's defeat. Then a local Conservative MP dies while performing autoerotic acrobatics in his swimming pool, and Titmuss seizes the main chance. He offers to secretly help the idealistic young Labour candidate, Terry Flitton, win the seat. The first indication that Flitton is treading dangerous ground comes during their initial meeting, when Titmuss suggests he deny his socialist leanings until after the election, and Terry protests, "It wouldn't be true to my beliefs."

"Of course it would." His Lordship sighed and rose wearily to his feet as though about to explain an obvious point to a particularly thick House of Commons. "You'd be doing your beliefs the greatest possible service. You'd be giving them the chance of a lifetime. Then, if you beat Wee Willie, and your party wins the next general election, you can come up red as roses. Be as bloody Socialist as you like!"

If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, the path to power is simply littered with them. Before long the young idealist is compromising his ideals right and left and Titmuss is well on the way to achieving his revenge. Nobody has a better grasp of the absurdities and transgressions of British political life than John Mortimer, and The Sound of Trumpets is a delicious tour through the cutthroat world of electioneering told with scathing wit and a merciless eye. --Alix Wilber