Rumpole of the Bailey

Rumpole successfully defends a teenager accused of robbery with violence, but his victory is marred by the knowledge that, although innocent on this occasion, the boy is destined for a life of crime.

Rumpole is very content to be defending a drugs case in the peace of the West Country. However, the outcome of the trial is not so pleasing.

An MP is accused of raping one of his assistants, and he seems reluctant to defend himself. Rumpole is left with only one line of defense: attack the complainant's character, thereby infuriating his son's American fiancee.

After a long spell without cases, Rumpole is apparently divorcing his old friend and colleague George Frobisher. His client, meanwhile, threatens to drive Rumpole's wife, Hilda, into the arms of her friend Dodo.

Rumpole accuses a dishonest policeman of framing his safecracker client and finds himself in legal trouble when he can't back up his claim.

Rumpole defends a stuttering, apparently mentally challenged petty crook on a murder charge. His client has all the evidence stacked against him, but Rumpole's battered old bowler hat seems to be stealing all the attention in chambers.

Rumpole defends a vicar accused of shoplifting three shirts, although he refuses to testify in his own behalf.

One instance of marital infidelity is at the root of Rumpole's case involving a liquor store robbery, while another affair threatens the stability of his chambers.

Rumpole goes on "circus," or rather on circuit, in the north, where an actor and theater manager has been shot with a stage prop. The case seems clear-cut, but everything depends on how one reads the script.

Captain Rex Parkin is charged with an offense under the Race Relations Act and finds to his horror that Rumpole has taken under his wing a pupil barrister from the Punjab.

What appears to be an uncontrollable outbreak of bed-hopping is about to ruin the chances of Guthrie Featherstone, QC, MP, becoming a judge, as well as torpedo Rumpole's client's career as a teacher.

Both Rumpole and his current client, Percy Timson, one of the patriarchs of a criminal clan, are under pressure by their families to retire.

After a string of losing cases, Rumpole has retired and moved to Florida, where he and his wife are staying with their son and daughter-in-law. But the endless sun and swimming pools are driving Rumpole mad, and when his old chambers sends him a letter questioning some bloodstain evidence, he hurries back to London to work on the case.