Anything Considered
by By Mayle, Peter
Category: Fiction , General

Bennett, an English expatriate living in France, has champagne tastes and a vin ordinaire bankroll. He has abandoned a successful career and found an ideal village to idle in. But a business scheme fails to work out, and he finds himself broke.Not a man to be downhearted, he places an advertisement in the International Herald Tribune volunteering his services - any services, anything considered. The most attractive response comes from a rich Englishman named Julian Poe who has developed a means of producing superb truffles and is close to cornering the immensely lucrative truffle market.Bennett signs on and - bliss! - he finds himself in Monaco and able to live in a style to which he has wished to become accustomed (including eating to and beyond his heart's content). He is joined there by the beautiful and experienced (in all ways) Anna, a New Yorker who has put in time in the Israeli army.But soon - sniffing the financial potential of the truffle - Sicilian and Corsican Mafiosi intrude. Life gets somewhat hectic. Ham-fisted goons, gendarmes working at cross-purposes, French village busybodies, and an order of monks dedicated to the god Bacchus all play a role in a surprising and much more than slightly satisfying denouement.