Product Description

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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #216186 in Books
• Published on: 1998-04-28
• Released on: 1998-04-28
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Amazon.com Review
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?

From Library Journal
Photographer Andre Kelly is on assignment in the South of France when he decides to spend his free day in Cap Ferrat visiting some former clients, the Denoyers. As he arrives, he witnesses Claude, the Denoyers' hired man, loading a precious Cezanne into the back of a beat-up plumber's van. Deciding that something is amiss, Andre photographs the event and thus becomes involved in a wild escapade to track down the painting. When he explains the situation to Lucy, his agent and soon-to-be love interest, they decide that they need some expert help and call in Cyrus, a wealthy art dealer, who smells a scam. Add in a scoundrelly art dealer and his daffy lover, an art forger, and a former French Legionnaire, and the trail to the lost Cezanne becomes a comedy of errors. Along the way, there are vibrant descriptions of Paris, Provence, Cap Ferrat, and of course mouth-watering French meals and wine. Part travelog and part art mystery caper, this new tale from Mayle, the author who put Provence on the map, is a thoroughly enjoyable romp through the international art world. Recommended for all fiction collections.
-?Robin Nesbitt, Columbus Metropolitan Lib., Ohio
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Mayle gets better with each book, creating even more inventive plots and fashioning even more delectable characters. In his latest wonderful novel, Andre Kelly does substantial freelance photography for Camilla Porter, editor of the splashy New York magazine DQ. Camilla sends Andre to the South of France on a particular assignment. With time to kill, he ventures to a local villa to pay his respects to the owner, but, instead, observes a Cezanne painting being removed from the premises. Curiosity aroused, Andre pursues the story and inadvertently gets himself involved in a complicated art-forgery scam. With the enlisted aid of his assistant back in New York and a sophisticated art dealer only too thrilled to be involved in such a delicious caper, Andre successfully circumvents all attempts to do him bodily harm and finds out exactly what is going on. And who turns out to be up to her exquisitely plucked eyebrows in the art fraud? DQ editor Camilla Porter herself. At once breezy and intelligent, Mayle's novel is absolutely pleasurable reading. Brad Hooper

Customer Reviews

MEDIUM MAYLE NOT QUITE WELL DONE
When Provence is his provenance Peter Mayle serves a 5-star feast. Toujours Provence and A Year In Provence were delicious.

Mayle's sixth presentation, Chasing Cezanne, is more of a satisfying deli sandwich, thick with slices of New York, Paris and the Riviera plus a side order of chicanery garnished with romance.

The Big Apple is where photographer Andre Kelly hangs his long lens when he isn't in lush locales photographing estates and their art treasures for a trendy design magazine, Decorating Quarterly. Nourished by Evian water and greed, his editor, Camilla Porter, is as sleek as her publication. Avarice is the bond she shares with one of her paramours, an art trader.

While on a photo shoot in the south of France, Andre drops by a billionaire's villa hoping to renew acquaintance with the magnate's attractively receptive daughter. Since the mansion is shuttered for the season, he is surprised to see what appears to be the family Cezanne leave in a "dirty blue Renault" plumber's van. Unable to forget this puzzling scene, Andre contacts an upscale gallery owner who deals in Impressionists, the patrician Cyrus Pine. (Think Peter O'Toole "in a gray tweed suit of European cut, a pale-blue shirt, and a butter-colored silk bow tie.") Having learned at Eton that "coming top" or winning is the only way to go, the dealer smells skullduggery and a whopping commission.

While Cyrus does some investigating, Andre warms himself during Manhattan's dank winter with his agent, Lucy, a Barbadian beauty sporting a mop of black curls and skin color "halfway between chocolate and honey."

The potage thickens when Andre's apartment is ransacked, and it is learned that the painting now hanging in the Cap Ferrat villa is a skillful forgery.

Deciding the copyist is Franzen, a corpulent Dutch forger living in Paris, Andre, Cyrus and Lucy head for the City of Light, where an elevator is "of that particular Gallic size which encourages close personal relationships."

Mayle is, of course, the most congenial of travel guides as the trio romps down the Boulevard Saint-Germain, up the Eiffel Tower and along the Seine. He's as urbanely witty as ever and still turns an intoxicating phrase: "...the sound of the cork being drawn, no louder than a sudden exhalation of breath, was followed by the whisper of bubbles rising in the glass."

Less adroit when describing the murderous Paradou who stalks the trio, the author cooks up a careening chase through Cannes, Antibes and back to Cap Ferrat.

With Chasing Cezanne Mayle brings to mind an accomplished boulevardier who has mastered each glance, inflection, and compliment. He knows he can easily charm, and he does.

clumsy and hastily penned Mayle
I've enjoyed several of Mayle's other books, but this one is an amiable clunker. The mystery plot is buried under the guise of globetrotting and eating good food. The book would have read much better without the dumb chase scenes (the "hit man" following our narrator) and with more meals. After all, it's mood, ambience and food that Mayle specializes in, not characterization and plot, both of which are sorely lacking.

This book is so mediocre that it's not even a good beach read. You won't care much what happens in this "art" mystery because the plot is so thrown together. One gets the feeling his editor said, "Okay, we need a book in a week." I won't hold it against Mayle since his other books are much more charming, but this one is almost totally devoid of this usual charm.

VINTAGE MAYLE
Chasing Cezanne isn't Mayle's best book, but it's still vintage Mayle--a fun romp through the French countryside. And, as usual, Mayle brings his special brand of magic to this book as well--he captures the essence of Provence and somehow manages to convey it with crystal clarity and lots of laughs.