Paradise postponed

Why does Simeon Simcox, ``left-wing cleric'' of an English village, leave the Simcox brewery millions to the morally loathsome Leslie ``The Toad'' Titmuss, city developer and Conservative cabinet minister? Simeon's sonsFred, the jazz-drumming doctor, and writer Henry, once ``Britain's brightest and angriest''conduct separate sleuthing inquiries into Simeon's life and will. Was the low-born Titmuss, who has bought and sold his upper-crust associates and climbed to power on their crippled backs, really Simeon's offspring? Barrister, playwright, scriptwriter, novelist Mortimer (Rumpole of the Bailey brings his legal expertise and somber humor to this competently cobbled, though dogged, plot that takes in the upheavals of British society from the '40s to the '70s. Where the gentry once rode to hounds, the constabulary now rides against women camping on the heath to protest the Cruise missile. Despite some funny scenes of sitcom buffoonery, readers are apt to feel indifferent to the squads of characters that Mortimer parades forth, who are largely representatives of social forces, with little human blood in them. 25,000 first printing; BOMC alternate. (April) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Mortimer, known for his Rumpole series, here offers the life of Rector Simeon Simcos in the small English village of Rapstone Fanner. LJ's reviewer found Mortimer's writing "witty and the wordplay entertaining" but thought the plot a little "flimsy" (LJ 4/1/86). (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

The author of the Rumpole stories here transfers his generous comic talents to a larger scale, a novel that spans four decades. Mortimer's finest ability is crafting characters that elicit both laughter and sympathy, and this novel is full of them: eccentric, hilarious, yet thoroughly real. The Reverend Simcox, left-leaning local Pastor and an heir to the Simcox Brewery fortune, has died and left his whole inheritance not to his two sons or wife, but to one Leslie Titmuss. This unlikely choice--the local conservative M.P. who earned his seat by sleazy self-aggrandizement and untrammeled greed--sets the story in motion, as the Simcox sons unravel their father's motives. Henry, the elder and a writer, with an annulment in mind, tries to prove that his father was a lunatic. Fred, a doctor and jazz drummer, simply seeks the truth. Leaping back and forth in time, the narrative pieces together the lives of Leslie, Fred, and Henry from childhood to middle-age, through comedies of class, love, manners, and errors, all the while chasing the elusive mystery of the Simcox estate. The characters are introduced in broad satirical strokes--the apparently raffish show nobility, the idealistic cynicism, the soulful meanness. Mortimer mills humor from these ironies, as in Fred's mentor, a local doctor whose main advice to patients is not to cling to life too much, or the Reverend Simcox himself, for whom otherworldly concerns can wait till we get there. This is a novel both of and about disillusion, and an exploration of failed socialist ideals in postwar Britain. But the book's conclusion--that the saints were sinners all along, and the hoped-for New Jerusalem was chimerical--is intellectually and emotionally pallid; the build-up promised more. Nonetheless, a worthwhile story, alive with humanity and good humor. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

The author of the Rumpole TV series focuses here on the life of Rector Simeon Simcox of Rapstone Fanner, an English village. The novel begins with Simcox on his deathbed, and the remainder is a series of flashbacks featuring the Simcox family, their friends, and Leslie Titmuss, a singleminded manipulator who climbs from poor boy to cabinet minister. The ``mystery'' of the novel is why Simcox, in his will, leaves all he owns to Titmuss. After much tediously contrived suspense, we learn that Titmuss is Simcox's illegitimate son. The writing is witty and the wordplay entertaining, but Mortimer has overextended a flimsy plot. Glenn O. Carey, English Dept., Eastern Kentucky Univ., Richmond Copyright 1986 Cahners Business Information.

Why does Simeon Simcox, ``left-wing cleric'' of an English village, leave the Simcox brewery millions to the morally loathsome Leslie ``The Toad'' Titmuss, city developer and Conservative cabinet minister? Simeon's sonsFred, the jazz-drumming doctor, and writer Henry, once ``Britain's brightest and angriest''conduct separate sleuthing inquiries into Simeon's life and will. Was the low-born Titmuss, who has bought and sold his upper-crust associates and climbed to power on their crippled backs, really Simeon's offspring? Barrister, playwright, scriptwriter, novelist Mortimer (Rumpole of the Bailey brings his legal expertise and somber humor to this competently cobbled, though dogged, plot that takes in the upheavals of British society from the '40s to the '70s. Where the gentry once rode to hounds, the constabulary now rides against women camping on the heath to protest the Cruise missile. Despite some funny scenes of sitcom buffoonery, readers are apt to feel indifferent to the squads of characters that Mortimer parades forth, who are largely representatives of social forces, with little human blood in them. 25,000 first printing; BOMC alternate. (April) Copyright 1986 Cahners Business Information.