Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140259708 ISBN 13: 9780140259704

Publisher: Penguin Putnam~mass, 1997

Bennett is a drifter, attracted to the good life in the South of France and willing to try anything for easy money. He ends up in trouble with some crooks trying to corner the white truffle market, his trouble taking him to yachts in the Mediterranean, Monaco and even further as the plot thickens.

Review:

Peter Mayle continues to mine the romanticism of Provence for his literary success. A former advertising executive, his Year in Provence told of his time there and brought him unexpected acclaim. Then came three more tales from Provence, Toujours Provence, Hotel Pastis and A Dog's Life. In his latest work, Mayle finds another good reason to write about Provence: its food and wine. This tale is an adventure that manages to send its heroes through a series of wine-tastings and excellent restaurants as they seek to save the black truffle. It's an adventure many of us would love to take.

From the Inside Flap:

Bennett is an English expatriate living in France with a champagne taste and a beer bankroll. Happy-go-lucky and a bit roguish, he places an ad in the International Herald Tribune offering his services -- any services. He pursues a response from a wealthy Englishman named Julian Poe who has developed a means of producing truffles and is close to cornering the immensely lucrative truffle market. Bennett signs on and finds himself in Monaco, where he is able to live in a style to which he has always wished to become accustomed (including eating to his heart's content -- a Mayle trademark!). Soon the Sicilian and Corsican Mafiosi intrude and Bennett is joined by the beautiful and experienced (in all ways) Anna. Ham-fisted goons, gendarmes working at cross purposes, French village busybodies, and an order of monks dedicated to the god Bacchus all play a role in the surprising, and more than a little satisfying, denouement.