A house party among Anglos near the coast in Provence. There is a fire: a handful of decadents die. Who dun it? Cui bono? One survivor, half-burnt, goes in quest for answers along the Riviera, from St Tropez to Santa Margherita Ligure and back. Encountering yachties, a wealthy designer, an actress, would-be gangsters, twin young men, an old salt and others half-reflecting his past, he moves towards a future where no motive is sure; where the hard-boiled ethics of his American father's generation are being eclipsed by older, more ambiguous instincts.A subtle homage to the most famous writer to live in the author's home town, this novel will have special fascination for anyone familiar with the last works of Raymond Chandler, not least the the affair between his hero Philip Marlowe and the glamorous heiress Linda Loring. What would have eventuated from it?'Chip Martin is not afraid of big themes or complex structures; his work ranges widely through history and shows the mind and imagination of a true polymath, as well as an ambitious storyteller.'-- Deborah Moggach While the reader may be both tantalised and frustrated at times by the density of the intrigue, once the 'fable' starts to veer towards a conclusion - with a totally unpredicted twist - it becomes hard to put down. - Hampstead & Highgate Express A house party among Anglos near the coast in Provence. There is a fire: a handful of decadents die. Who dun it? Cui bono? One survivor, half-burnt, goes in quest for answers along the Riviera, from St Tropez to Santa Margherita Ligure and back. Encountering yachties, a wealthy designer, an actress, would-be gangsters, twin young men, an old salt and others half-reflecting his past, he moves towards a future where no motive is sure and the hard-boiled ethics of his American father's generation are being eclipsed by older, more ambiguous instincts. Chip Martin grew up in California and has lived mainly in London since the early 1970s.  He writes criticism under the name Stoddard Martin and is author of a sequence of linked novellas published by Starhaven. He once paid tuition for his higher degrees by selling feathered earrings along the beach at St Tropez.