It was the perfect vacation for PI Mac Reilly and his fiancée, Sunny Alvarez – renting the villa, Chez La Violette, in beautiful St. Tropez for the month of June. When filming requirements keep Mac in Malibu for a few extra days, Sunny travels to St. Tropez accompanied only by her chihuahua Tesoro. On arrival, she discovers they’ve been scammed, the villa has been rented to FIVE people for the same time period and the state of the place would make it the perfect setting for a horror movie.

The misfits, as they’ve taken to calling themselves, decamp to a small seaside hotel nearby – the Hotel of Dreams. There their stories slowly come to light: Belinda is on the run from her husband a Russian mobster; Texans Billy and his daughter Laureen who’s still trying to regroup from the death of her mother; shy Sara who’s just broken up with her no-good boyfriend; and former trader Nate who has set up to find himself. As they settle in, Mac decides to track down Madame Lariot in hope of getting their money back. Soon art thefts and a murder interfere with their peaceful vacation and Mac is drawn further into investigations. Will Sunny get any time for romance?

There’s Something About St. Tropez, Elizabeth Adler’s sequel to One of Those Malibu Nights, is the type of fun, light mysteries that many readers look forward to reading in the summer. The easy to follow plot and quirky nature of the characters ensures that interruptions won’t cause readers to lose track of the action.

What elevates There’s Something About St. Tropez above other books marketed as “summer reading” is the sub-plot involving eight-year-old Laureen and eleven-year-old Bertrand, another hotel resident who has been abandoned by his heartless mother. Laureen and Bertrand’s voices ring with authenticity and their tentative gestures toward friendship, magical. Brought out of themselves by Tesoro and Pirate, Mac’s three-legged dog, the children bravely set out to solve the mystery of the art thefts in order to win the reward money and gain Bertrand freedom from his mother. Readers will cheer them on and celebrate their rediscovery of live beyond grief.

ISBN10: 0312385145
ISBN13: 9780312385149

Hardcover
400 Pages
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Publication Date: July 7, 2009
Author Website: www.elizabethadler.com