Hotel Pastis, Peter Mayle (1993) ***

Mayle had previously written A Year in Provence, a best-selling travelogue based on his own experience living in this part of France.

He uses this locale for his novel, wherein an Englishman, Simon Shaw, recently divorced and frustrated by his job as an advertising executive, vacations to this part of France and is thoroughly charmed by a small village and its people. With prompting from his new found French sweetheart, Nicole, he decides to convert the village's abandoned police station into a boutique hotel and get out of the rat-race of advertising altogether. He convinces his loyal friend, chauffeur and 'man servant', Ernest, to help him set up and run the hotel, because Ernest is expert at decorating, a connoisseur of food and wine, and works wonderfully well with people

The towns various inhabitants, eager to help with and profit from this project, add local color and comedy to the novel. The story is enhanced by a sub-plot involving some aging local thugs and their convoluted scheme to rob the bank in a nearby town. They end up kidnapping the son of one of Simon Shaw's wealthy clients, which further complicates his task of establishing his new hotel. In this type of novel, you know that 'all will end well' but getting to the ending is lots of fun.