The story of Rumpole's first client follows the fledgling barrister's participation in the trial of a man accused of murdering his father and a friend with a German pistol, a case that established Rumpole's career.

Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs) may be the pride and joy of the New Labour Party, but they don't cut much ice with Horace Rumpole--he takes the old-fashioned view that if anyone is going to be threatened with a restriction of their liberty then some form of legal proceeding ought to be gone through first. Not that Hilda agrees, of course, but she's too busy completing her memoirs to dissuade him from taking an interest when one of the Timson...