Chasing Cezanne

Our hero, glamorous art photographer Andre Kelly, is on assignment for glamorous DQ Magazine--run by the glamorous Camilla Porter--in Cape Ferrat on the (you guessed it) glamorous Côte d'Azur. Snooping around an ancestral pile for some snaps, by chance he spies Old Claude, the ancient retainer of the immensely wealthy Denoyer family, packing the family Cezanne into a plumbing van. Puzzled, Andre investigates, and the game is afoot. Peter Mayle's latest effort, Chasing Cezanne, is a whodunit that shows good manners and impeccable taste. It takes its characters--graduates of all the best schools, of course--to some of the world's most posh locales. The plot device is high rent, too: a purloined painting worth a cool $30 million. To call this book lightweight seems unfair and boorish besides. There's lots of travel, lots of opulence, lots of opportunities for Mayle to describe Paris and Provence, and all the yummies you'll find in both places. Who can worry about a mystery when the food's so delectable?