Paradise Postponed

Rating:
Summary: Mortimer's best non-Rumpole book
Review: I'm biased: I think John Mortimer's Rumpole stories are so perfectly written that I've never thought his longer works quite measure up. This one comes the closest; in Paradise Postponed, Mortimer follows a disparate group of characters from the Second World War up through the late 1960s, using their stories to reflect developments in England during the same period. As you might expect from the creator of Rumpole, there's also an interesting mystery, but the real focus is on the relationships and dynamics between the characters, as Mortimer centers on a young man from a working class background who eventually becomes a powerful politician. Mortimer has an uncanny knack for creating characters who are believable, quirky individuals, and he makes us care about their struggles. The dialogue crackles, which one might expect since Mortimer was writing the TV adaptation of Paradise Postponed at the same time he was writing the novel. Paradise Postponed has had two sequels, which don't have quite the same scope either in terms of character development or time period covered.

What surprises me is that the TV adaptation of Paradise Postponed has never been released on video, at least in the U.S. There'd be a large market for it.