The Diamond Caper

August 31, 2015
From the engaging first sentence, bestseller Mayle’s fourth novel featuring American detective Sam Levitt (after 2014’s The Corsican Caper) delights—more because of the French local color than any hardcore mystery solving. Sam and insurance investigator Elena Morales are on the hunt for a jewelry thief in the South of France. The thefts, which began small in 2002, have gradually escalated to include a two-million-euro necklace stolen from a party at the Cannes Film Festival. But the book’s strength lies in the great descriptions of characters (“even voice sounded suntanned”) and of all things French. As he does in his memoirs, Mayle excels at evoking French cuisine: the croissants and cafe crème, the sauce mousseline, and the shopping trips to the outdoor market, where even the peaches, apparently, taste better than anywhere else. Fans of his caper series will enjoy finding out how Sam and Elena’s romance develops (hint: a house is purchased, and the phrase kept woman is invoked). Agent: Ernest Chapman, Escargot Productions (U.K.).

September 15, 2015
Mayle, best known for his mega-selling nonfiction book A Year in Provence, has trumpeted the glories of French cuisine and culture ever since. His Provencal caper series (this is the fourth installment) goes beyond light to downright frothy, much closer to romance than to mystery. The caper novels star passionate gastronome and sometime sleuth Sam Levitt and his girlfriend, Elena Morales, an insurance-claims investigator based in L.A. who often travels to France to meet Sam and solve mysteries. Elena's firm faces a huge claim from a socialite in Nice whose prize diamonds have been stolen. This is a crisis case, since jewelry heists in the south of France have been skyrocketing in the past year. That hook allows Elena and Sam to reunite once again. It also affords the reader entry into to-die-for restaurants, parties, and homes (including the one on a promontory overlooking the Mediterranean that Sam and Elena lust after). The tale is a bit thin on plotting and characterization, but Mayle's brilliant presentation of food and scenery will delight his readers, who come for the meals, not the circuses.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)

May 1, 2015

Back in the fourth entry in the "Caper" series by Provence-booster Mayle, Sam Levitt and Elena Morales must deal with the theft of a Riviera socialite's diamonds--one of a series of daring jewel thefts across France that seem unrelated, but Sam thinks otherwise. As they expand the investigation, things get hotter than Saint-Tropez at high noon. Look for Goodreads giveaways, plus promotion on travel as well as literary sites.

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