Talking Location With … Rob Starr: SOUTH AFRICA
Mystery set in the SOUTH OF FRANCE
21st August 2024
The Perfect Place by Amanda Cassidy, mystery set in the South of France.
Welcome to the Cotswolds of France. Elle is a Social Media influencer who is persuaded by her online producer, Sue, to buy a crumbling old château – to wit Château Mirabelle – with spires, a vineyard and a pool. The idea is to chart her renovations across her Social Media platforms and garner loads of interest and more sponsorship. As a project, it would be a complete interiors overhaul, a dead cert for engagement, success and money. The downside is the existing owner, Leonard, would remain in residence under the ‘en viager‘ clause, which under French law means he would sell but maintain the right to remain in the property until his death (that’s a story in itself right there!).
Elle’s fiancé, Will, comes from old money and works in his father’s firm, but he has a bit of an undisclosed gambling habit and the debts are piling up. His family is aware of his proclivities but not the extent of his habit, and Elle has no idea of what is going on behind her back. That means, of course, that he is in severe financial difficulty. Elle herself has a real backstory, something happened during childhood that she has managed to hide, because she has re-invented herself and has no traceable link (she thinks) to her childhood in Ireland.
Elle is also the spit of Leonard’s wife, who disappeared and it turns out he wasn’t the most loyal husband. Now he is enfeebled but can still exert a tremendous temper, as Elle and her team discover.
Of course, the château doesn’t turn out to be the perfect place, and soon all kinds of secrets and histories vie to pull the storyline this way and that. We know, down the line through short inserts, that there has been a bloody murder or two in the present, the police are investigating and therefore we are prepared for tumultuous event(s) at some point in. The story builds towards the denouement.
The chapters are short, the writing is punchy. On occasions the characters jump to conclusions but these feel more liked devices to move the story on rather than carefully crafted extrapolations. For example, Sue determines that Elle is hiding something and based on a whim, she decides to engage a PI to try and dig into her history, which seemed a bit contrived but is necessary to plot development. The end gets quite frantic as deaths emerge and culprits are put in the frame. The characters are all pretty much out for themselves and it’s hard to relate to any of their self-serving issues and interactions, and that influences the ending, which is so-so.
Overall, a reasonably enjoyable and quick read, and if you spot a fairy emoji in any comments on your Social Media channels, look a little closer! That’s all I am saying….
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