The Marseille Caper (Sam Levitt Series) by Peter Mayle

Hardback:  Lovable rogue and sleuth extraordinaire Sam Levitt is back in another beguiling, as-only-Peter-Mayle-can-write-it romp through the South of France.

At the end of The Vintage Caper (2009), Sam had just carried off a staggering feat of derring-do in the heart of Bordeaux, infiltrating the ranks of the French elite to rescue a stolen, priceless wine collection.  With the questionable legality of the adventure - and the threat of some very powerful enemies! - Sam thought it would be a while before he returned to France, especially with the charms of the beautiful Elena Morales to keep him in Los Angeles.

But when the immensely wealthy Francis Reboul - the victim of Sam's last heist but someone who knows talent when he sees it - asks our hero to take a job in Marseille, it is impossible for Sam and Elena to resist the possibility of further excitement, to say nothing of the pleasures of the region.

Soon the two are enjoying the coastal sunshine and the delectable food and wine for which Marseille is known.  Yet as a competition over Marseille's valuable waterfront grows more hotly disputed, Sam, representing Reboul, finds himself in the middle of an increasingly intrigue-ridden and dangerous real-estate grab, with thuggish gangsters on one side and sharklike developers on the other.

Will Sam survive this caper unscathed?

Will he live to enjoy another bowl of bouillabaisse?

All will be revealed - with luck, savvy, and a lot of help from Sam's friends - in the novel's wonderfully satisfying climax.

The Marseille Caper (2012) is the second instalment in this clever and pleasurable lawyer and wine connoisseur Sam Levitt series set in France.

About the author:  Peter Mayle (born 14 June 1939, in Brighton) was a British author famous for his series of books detailing life in Provence, France.  He spent fifteen years in advertising before leaving the business in 1975 to write educational books, including a series on sex education for children and young people.  In 1989, A Year in Provence was published and became an international bestseller.  His books have been translated into more than twenty languages, and he was a contributing writer to magazines and newspapers. 

Indeed, his seventh book, A Year in Provence, chronicles a year in the life of a British expatriate who settled in the village of Ménerbes.  His book, A Good Year, was the basis for the eponymous 2006 film directed by Ridley Scott and starring actor Russell Crowe.  Peter Mayle died in Provence, France on 18 January 2018.

Rating:  5/5

Lullaby by Leïla Slimani

Paperback:  She has the keys to their apartment. 

She knows everything. 

She has embedded herself so deeply in their lives that it now seems impossible to remove her.

When Myriam decides to return to work as a lawyer after having children, she and her husband look for the perfect nanny for their son and daughter.  They never dreamed they would find Louise:  a quiet, polite, devoted woman who sings to the children, cleans the family’s chic Paris apartment, stays late without complaint, and hosts enviable kiddie parties.  But as the couple and the nanny become more dependent on one another, jealousy, resentment, and suspicions mount, shattering the idyllic tableau. 

Building tension with every page, Lullaby (2018) is a compulsive, riveting, bravely observed exploration of power, class, race, domesticity, motherhood, and madness - and the American debut of an immensely talented writer.

Lullaby - The Perfect Nanny (USA) - is the #1 international bestseller and winner of France’s most prestigious literary prize, the Goncourt, in 2016. 

Lullaby is translated from the French by Sam Taylor.

Slimani's second novel, Adèle (about a young mother addicted to sex), will be out on 27 February 2019. 

About the author:  Leïla Slimani is a French writer and journalist of Moroccan ancestry.  In 2016 she was awarded the Prix Goncourt for her novel Chanson douce.

Slimani was born in Rabat, Morocco and studied later political science and media studies in Paris. After that she temporarily considered a career as an actress and began to work as a journalist for the magazine Jeune Afrique.  In 2014, she published her first novel Dans le jardin de l’ogre, which two years later was followed by the psychological thriller Chanson douce.  The latter quickly turned into a bestseller with over 600 000 copies printed within a year even before the book was awarded the Prix Goncourt.

Rating:  5/5

Force of Nature (Aaron Falk Series) by Jane Harper

Paperback:  Five women reluctantly pick up their backpacks and start walking along a muddy track.

Only four come out on the other side.

The hike through the rugged Giralang Ranges is meant to take the office colleagues out of their air-conditioned comfort zone and encourage teamwork and resilience.  At least, that is what the corporate retreat website advertises.

Federal Police investigator Aaron Falk has a keen interest in the whereabouts of the missing hiker, Alice Russell.  Because Alice knew secrets, about the company she worked for and the people she worked with.

The four returning women tell Falk a tale of fear, violence and fractured trust during their days in the remote Australian bushland.  And as Falk delves into the disappearance of Alice, he begins to suspect some dangers ran far deeper than anyone knew.

Force of Nature (2017) is the second instalment in the excellent Federal Police Agent Aaron Falk series set in Melbourne, Australia.  It clearly demonstrates her background of more than a decade in journalism and is an Observer Book of the Year 2018.

About the author:  Jane Harper is the author of The Dry, winner of various awards including the 2015 Victorian Premier's Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript, the 2017 Indie Award Book of the Year and the 2017 Australian Book Industry Awards Book of the Year Award.  Rights have been sold in 27 territories worldwide, and film rights optioned to Reese Witherspoon and Bruna Papandrea. 

Jane worked as a print journalist for thirteen years both in Australia and the UK.  In 2014, she submitted a short story which was one of 12 chosen for the Big Issue's annual Fiction Edition.  That inspired her to pursue creative writing more seriously, and that year she applied for an online 12-week novel writing course.  She was accepted with a submission for the book that would become The Dry.  Jane lives in St Kilda with her husband and daughter.

Rating:  5/5

The Serpent Papers (Serpent Papers Trilogy) by Jessica Cornwell

Paperback:  Barcelona, Summer 2003.

Three women are sacrificed to an unknown purpose, skin carved with a cryptic alphabet, tongues cut from their mouths.  Sent beautiful, sinister letters - clues, or confessions? - Inspector Fabregat cannot decipher the warnings within.

As Barcelona explodes in revelry on the Festival of St Joan, Natalia Hernandez, flower of the National Theatre and Catalan idol, lies broken on the steps of the Cathedral.  The city bays for blood, Fabregat chases a shadow-like suspect and signs that whisper of secrets beyond his grasp.

Barcelona, Winter 2014.

Anna Verco - academic, book thief, savant - unearths letters hidden for centuries from a lightning-struck chapel in Mallorca.  What they reveal compels her and Fabregat to reignite the Hernandez investigation.  Every page she turns conceals a coded message;  every street she treads leads her deeper into the labyrinth.

As Fabregat baits her with suspects, and threats darken her steps, Anna hunts her own prey - the book that began it all, a medieval revelation written in the language of witches and alchemists:  The Serpent Papers. 

Anna believes this book will unlock the mystery.  She does not yet know she is the key.

The Serpent Papers (2015) combines the intrigue of The Da Vinci Code with the mysticism of a Carlos Ruiz Zafón novel.  The narrative shifts between the 12th century and the present day, using storytelling devices including letters, ancient scribes, complex web of codes, medieval references and mystified former detectives.  It is the first book in the gripping Serpent Papers Trilogy series set in Barcelona, Spain.

About the author:  Jessica - granddaughter of John le Carré - majored in English at Stanford University.  While there, she won a prestigious Angel Art Grant and participated in research projects in Andalusia, New Delhi and Oxford.  After graduating, she completed her masters in drama at the Institute of Theatre and the Autonomous University of Barcelona before training with the Catalan theatre company La Fura dels Baus.

Since moving to London, Jessica Cornwell has worked as a runner at Working Title Films, a freelance researcher and a program director for the Santozeum, a start-up museum and art hub based between London and Santorini.  She is an Observer Debut Author of the Year for 2015, and has written for The Independent and The Sunday Times.

Jessica was raised with her seven siblings in Ojai, California.  The Serpent Papers is her first novel.

Rating:  4/5

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Saint Clare of Assisi by Sister Chiara Augusta Lainati

Paperback:  The brief sketch of the life of St Clare is for those who desire a first meeting with her, and it is not narrated in scholarly language.

It is an account of pure historical truth, taken from unimpeachable documents which portray St Clare as she is, living and real for the twentieth century, a model for people today and not merely a personality relegated to a backdrop of medieval scenery.

For it is precisely the prerogative of the saints, as it is of artists of immortal masterpieces, to be alive in every age and always to speak the language of the present.

This fourth edition is printed in June 2011 by Edizioni Porziuncola and is translated from the Italian by Sister Jane Frances, PCC.

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