Title: "Chasing A Plot" is More Like It
Product review: As a fan of Peter Mayle, I can't tell you how let down I was by this extremely slight, jetsetting-but-going-nowhere novel. I enjoyed the lighthearted A Year in Provence and Hotel Pastis, so I wasn't expected War and Peace by a long shot. But this (perhaps mercifully) short novel does nothing to evoke the landscape, whet the reader's appetite for fine food and gracious living, or even hint at character development. Too many stock characters (the dashing photographer, the take-no-prisoners editor, the perfectly pressed art dealer, the starry-eyed first-time-in-Paris ingenue). And the quick pacing leads to a disappointing denouement, which is -- sacre bleu! -- even more lackluster than the author's description of the colorful art which is purportedly being "chased." The extra star is only for my fondness of Mayle's other books: Otherwise, I'd only give it one. Two dreary thumbs down.
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