The Sound of Trumpets - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140282882 ISBN 13: 9780140282887

Publisher: Penguin, 1999

Synopsis

After the death of a Tory MP in dubious circumstances, New Labour arrives in the Rapstone Valley in the shape of Terry Flitton and his very PC wife, Kate. The seat is captured, but at the at the terrible price of collaboration with the old Thatcherite Lord Titmuss, still a force in the area.

About this title

Review

In Paradise Postponed and Titmuss Regained John Mortimer took some fairly hefty swipes at the Thatcherite Conservative governments and the way the Labour Party had let them get away with it. The fact that Labour is the government at this writing appears to have changed nothing and the final part of this post-war political trilogy launches a pretty good swipe at them as well. New Labour--or "conservatism with water" as the trilogy's most enduring character, Leslie Titmuss, calls them--are seen, like the appearance of identical high streets in every town, as just another example of the blanding of Britain. So enter Titmuss--now retired from the Thatcher cabinet and called Lord Titmuss, First Baron Skurfield--to shake things up. He plays a wonderful Mephistopheles to a proto-Blairite parliamentary candidate's Faust as the electors in the tranquil Rapstone Valley again become a microcosm of British public life. Champagne socialists seem to come out of it all rather well, (as, it must be said, do reactionary old brutes like Titmuss) and the real venom is again reserved for the insipid political clones and power junkies. All in all vintage Mortimer. --Nick Wroe

About the Author

John Mortimer is a playwright, novelist and former barrister. He has also written two volumes of bestselling autobiography, CLINGING TO THE WRECKAGE and MURDERERS AND OTHER FRIENDS as well as many novels. He lives near Henley.

Edition details

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0140282882
• ISBN 13: 9780140282887
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288