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Having delighted millions of Americans with A Year in Provence and Toujours Provence, Peter Mayle treats us to a wonderfully entertaining novel of escape, romance, and adventure, played out in the landscape he has made so irresistible. Simon Shaw, a forty-two-year-old advertising tycoon, worn down by insatiable clients and a rapacious ex-wife, wants to get away from it all. On impulse he drives off in his Congo-black Porsche convertible to take a break in the South of France. When an accident strands him in a small village in the Luberon, an enchanting French woman, who is between husbands, comes to his rescue and soon lures him into buying the local gendarmerie with its splendid view. Together with the indispensable aid of Ernest, Simon's majordomo - valet, chauffeur, confidant, master of detail, and inspired flower arranger - they transform the rubble into a little jewel of a hotel. And life seems idyllic. But at the same time, something pas tres catholique is afoot: a petty crook, recently released from the Marseilles prison, and some of his pals are plotting an assault on the bank - more picturesque than secure - in the nearby town. Paths cross; schemes go awry; an heir to millions disappears. And through it all Peter Mayle delights us with the intrigues of the haute monde that descends on the Hotel Pastis and the machinations of the bad guys in the environs, as everything conspires to threaten the heaven on earth that Simon Shaw has envisioned.

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