Quite Honestly

Date of Reading: 11/05/2007

Author: John Mortimer

Publisher: Readers Digest (selected editions)

Place: Australia

Year: 2006

Summary:

         Lucy Purefoy is the daughter of a bishop and she wants to do something good, and so joins in SCRAP as a praeceptor. Her duty is to reform the criminals coming out of the prison.

         Her first client is Terry Keegan, an expert in house-breaking. First he won't listen, but later he takes a job in a restaurant as he is interested in her. So on seeing Lucy spending time with her boyfriends, he leaves the place and starts the old 'business' again. 

          Lucy meanwhile has taken up an advertisement job; they meet after three months. Terry confesses that it is the excitement that drew him back to the old job. Lucy is interested and begins stealing to experience the same thrill. Terry tries in vain to control her though now they are in a firm relationship. She gets caught in a serious robbery and is convicted for three years imprisonment.

            Terry is tired of his thefts and decides to mend his ways; their relationship is broken. When Lucy comes out of prison after the confinement, Terry was their waiting as she had waited for him at the beginning; he is her praeceptor. Thus the story reverses.

Rating: Very Good

Comment:
          Story is quite amusing. One is reminded of Gandhi's attempt to convert a meat-eater which ends in him eating meat for the first and the last time.