Anything Considered

Peter Mayle’s delicious new fictional confection is set, bien entendu, in Provence, where a suave if slightly threadbare English expat named Bennett is reaching the end of his credit. In desperation he places an ad in The International Herald Tribune: “Unattached Englishman … seeks interesting and unusual work. Anything considered except marriage.”

In no time at all Bennett is being paid handsomely to impersonate the mysterious and very wealthy Julian Poe. This entails occupying Poe’s pala...