Devilry and Dirty Tricks With Titmuss

With “The Sound of Trumpets,” John Mortimer presents his third installment in “The Rapstone Chronicles,” his continuing comedy of manners set against the world of English politics and country life. As in “Titmuss Regained” and “Paradise Postponed,” center stage is occupied by the conniving villain, or anti-hero, Leslie Titmuss, now Lord Titmuss, who was “ennobled with Mrs. Thatcher’s last gasp of authority” but--like the iron lady and her Tory party--has fallen from power and in popularity. In retreat at Rapstone Manor, the sly, coldhearted former member of Parliament, a man who continues to believe that “power is a great deal more interesting than love,” will not, the reader senses, be deprived of finding a way to exercise it for too long.

Indeed, one of the pleasures and also, at the same time, one of the obvious limitations of a novel of this nature is that from the beginning the reader is well aware of the narrative territory ahead. “The Sound of Trumpets” is an old leather club chair of a book; the reader’s task is to sink down and stay put while Mortimer provides the entertainment, which he does, with his customary deftness, irony and satire. As long as the reader suspends disbelief--principally regarding the nakedness of Titmuss’ villainy--then the proceedings will unfold smoothly, offering much cozy pleasure along the way.

This does take the weest bit of doing, though, as Titmuss is so unremittingly diabolical in his manipulations that at moments the reader wants to shake some sense into the recipient of them. This is Terry Flitton, the Labor candidate for the recently vacated seat of Hartscombe, who turns to Titmuss for political guidance in a gesture about as judicious as Monica Lewinsky seeking romantic advice from Linda Tripp.

Flitton is something of an empty vessel, which leaves him open to influences both good and bad. Good comes in the form of Agnes Simcox, the proprietor of a local bookstore who stocks socialist texts on her shelves and agrees with Oscar Wilde that a map of the world that doesn’t include Utopia is not worth even glancing at. With Agnes, who is older than Flitton and substantially older than his wife, Kate, politics becomes “entertaining, glamorous, almost raffish.” The affair the two fall into credibly portrays an attraction based on qualities more enduring than youth and beauty.

But bad, let’s face it, makes for more delicious reading, just as winning makes for more exciting politics. Hence the readiness with which Flitton obeys Leslie Titmuss. “He hates foreigners, gays, single mothers, social workers and the poor,” Kate complains. “He loves Mrs. Thatcher, hanging, mandatory life sentences, global warming and ex-President Reagan.” “Winning matters most of all . . . ,” Flitton insists. “With beliefs. My beliefs. Not his. My beliefs and something of the Titmuss technique.”

Flitton grasps, as his idealistic wife does not, the difference between political ideals and the art of conducting elections. He allows Titmuss to persuade him to expose his lover’s best friend, cover up a lie about his origins, manipulate the media and adopt the strategies and positions of the opposite party, all rather par for the course of modern political practice.

Along the way, though, Flitton’s personal world is reduced to shambles, and “the dark presence that seemed to have taken control of his life” is not so easily cast off. After satirizing the suburbanization of the English countryside, the sexual peccadilloes of politicians, the prying perseverance of the press and his countrymen’s comic disputes over fox hunting, Mortimer closes “The Sound of Trumpets” with a set piece that shows Titmuss’ devilry undiminished and, if anything, rather sharpened by his retirement to the apparent sidelines. Terry Flitton may flit on out of the center of Rapstone, but Leslie Titmuss will surely remain on hand for a good while yet.