Chasing Cezanne
A Novel
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3.9 • 14개의 평가
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- US$10.99
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- US$10.99
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Hanky-panky on the international art scene is the source of the hilarity and fizz in Peter Mayle's new novel. He flies us back to the south of France (a region some readers of his irresistible best-sellers believe him to have invented), on a wild chase through galleries, homes of prominent collectors, and wickedly delectable restaurants. There are stopovers in the Bahamas and England, and in New York, where that glossiest of magazines, Decorating Quarterly, reflects the cutting-edge trendiness of its editor, Camilla Jameson Porter. (Camilla has recently broken new ground in the world of power lunches by booking two tables on the same day, and shuttling between them, at the city's trendiest restaurant.)
It is Camilla who has sent our hero, Andre Kelly, to Cap Ferrat to take glamorous photo-graphs of the houses and treasures of the rich, famous, and fatuous. He happens to have his camera at the ready when he spots a Cézanne being loaded onto a plumber's truck near the home of an absent collector. Odd, thinks Andre. And in no time he's on the trail of a state-of-the-art art scam, chasing Cézanne.
It's a joy to follow him and the crowds intent on speeding or foiling his quest--including a beautiful agent; a super-savvy art dealer attracted to the finer things in life, especially if they promise the payoff of a lifetime; an awesome Dutch forger; some outstandingly greedy New York sophisticates; and, invisible in the background, the parade of remarkable chefs whose mouthwatering culinary masterpieces periodically soothe the hero and tantalize the reader of Chasing Cézanne.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Notably missing from this latest diet-wrecking literary canape is Mayle's (Anything Considered) fixation on the truffle. In another conspicuous break with form, Mayle opens the action in New York rather than his beloved Provence. But readers hungry for French atmosphere should not lose heart. By the end of the first chapter, Paris-born, New York-based photographer Andre Kelly is winging his way to the Riviera on assignment for Camilla Jameson Porter, the sexy and ruthless editor of Decorating Quarterly magazine. In France, the young hero witnesses the trusted majordomo of a wealthy Frenchman loading what appears to be a priceless Cezanne into a tradesman's van. After a suspicious meeting with the painting's owner, Andre consults Cyrus Pine, an aging expert in rare art (and the pleasures of board and bedroom) who also smells a rat. The two are joined by Lucy, Andre's sensual, Barbados-born agent, and the sybaritic crusaders dash from the Bahamas back to France in search of an enigmatic forger who may be able to unravel the mystery. Up against a sinister plot to flood the world with bogus masterpieces, the trio gourmandize their way across the South of France, staying just one jump ahead of an assassin. Blending rare art, treachery and steamy romance with ambiance and haute cuisine, Mayle serves up even warmed-over plot and character as blithely as if they were chefs d'oeuvre.
