If you’ve followed this blog, you’ll be aware that I mix personal interest with purely food and culinary content. One of my hobbies is writing and my sixteenth book called ‘Jasmine’s Journey’ has been released. The story is the third in ‘The French Collection’ series. Here’s a bit about it

Jasmine’s Journey

Jasmine Guichard didn’t want Father Barbier touching her. She’s a plucky eight-year-old and she makes a run for it, but finds herself deep under the streets of Paris and lost in a maze of dark tunnels. But for a chance glimpse of her whilst visiting the catacombs, Harry and Tristan would have been none the wiser. Yet what can they do about it? They are eventually helped in their efforts by a young nun who is not at all what she seems. There’s more going on behind the closed doors of the Daughters of Charity of Saint Isabelle of France than meets the eye – a lot more.

Meanwhile, The Vicar is in Paris to complete a contract to terminate a paedophile. His chance meeting with Harry and Tristan could be the trigger they need to dig deeper into Jasmine’s disappearance. D.S. Robbie Allen and D.C. Benedict Blewett have been dispatched from Liverpool to find The Vicar before he strikes again.

Who will win the race?

JASMINE’S JOURNEY

Jasmine continued downwards, moving her torch from side to side and up and down. She had discovered that thirty seconds winding the handle gave her about 15 minutes of light. The younf girl shivered with the cold. She was wearing only a light summer tunic and the temperature down here seemed to be no more than about 10°C or 12°C. The passageway twisted and turned. The floor of the passage was limestone, the same as the walls, but loose stones and lumps of rock had fallen over time and walking wasn’t easy. In places the roof of the passage was over four metres high. Elsewhere it dropped down to not much more than one metre and Jasmine had to bend low to pass through. It was, she felt, like being in an Indiana Jones movie. Any minute now, she expected to see a great, unstoppable ball of stone rolling down the passage towards her.

And then the passage opened up and she found herself in a cavern that was so vast, her torch beam couldn’t reach the furthest walls. She walked on, touching the walls and examining the marks of tools in the stone. Here and there on the walls were men’s initials, like ancient street tags. It was clear that the space had been hacked out of the rock: there was nothing natural about it. The roof was, she estimated, about five metres high, and several huge columns of limestone had been left intact to support the weight of rock above. As she approached one of the walls, she could see that enormous lumps of limestone had fallen to the floor. There would be a moment in the future when the crushing weight above would collapse the whole gallery, filling it with millions of tons of bedrock. She hoped it wouldn’t happen in the next few minutes.

LOST IN THE CATACOMBS

But what if there wasn’t? What would she do if the tunnel went nowhere? Jasmine felt the panic begin to rise again like a cluster of weasel teeth in her abdomen. She sensed the tension grow in her face and limbs. Jasmine closed her eyes, her mind replaying her panic attack when the lights first went out. She didn’t want it to happen again, but couldn’t stop what was happening to her in this wretched blackness. Her breathing became more rapid, more shallow. It was like her thoughts were living in a personal hurricane of fear. She gulped. Anything to stop the primal urge to just flee and try to get away from the darkness that surrounded her and suffocated her.

Frozen to the spot, large salty tears darkened her face. She wasn’t crying; they simply rolled out of her closed eyes unbidden. There she stayed, unaware of the passing of time until she realised that the feelings of panic had subsided. She opened her eyes. Though she could still hear each of her breaths, rasping just the same as when she had the flu, she’d made it. She was back in control. Almost.

If you’ve followed this blog, you’ll be aware that I mix personal interest with purely food and culinary content. One of my hobbies is writing and my thirteenth book called ‘Cenotaph for the Living’ has been released. ‘Cenotaph for the Living’ is the second in ‘The French Collection’ and the characters move forward into a new adventure. Here’s a bit about it.

Cenotaph for the Living -‘The French Collection #2’

In Cenotaph for the Living, Tristan disappears on his 20th birthday. His family receive a ransom note demanding one million euros. The trouble is, they can’t report it to the police because it’s the police who sent the ransom note. Matters go from bad to worse until an old friend of Ken’s arrives on the scene. He’s been brought in to track down the corruption in the police and gendarme services. But it’s two against dozens. How is that going to pan out? Meanwhile Camille Laurent finds herself talking to a ghost who doesn’t know who he is.

CENOTAPH FOR THE LIVING

From his hiding place behind the high, elaborate burial chambers, Sparky kept an eye on the whole circle of grass and paths. His eyes locked on like magnets to the strange lady who sat talking to somebody next to her, who wasn’t there. He’d seen plenty of unstable people, usually alcoholics or drug abusers, who talked to invisible friends, but somehow, this lady didn’t quite fit that mould. There was something about her that said she was holding a perfectly normal conversation, not the ravings of someone whose mind was on another planet.

He dismissed the thought and looked back at the package that Ken had thrown over the railings. Unsettling to think there were one million euros in there. As he eased a cramp in his leg, he sensed someone behind him. There was no noise; just the smell of tobacco smoke and stale sweat. Years of Special Forces training made him instinctively reach for his weapon. Then he remembered that those days were gone, and he turned to see a man in his forties wearing a crumpled suit. Though the day was pleasantly warm, it was not unduly hot, yet the man’s face had a sheen of sweat as though he’d just splashed water on himself.

“What are you doing here?” the man snapped.

“Trying to find my way out,” Sparky said in his best broken French. “I got lost a bit and ended up here.”

“You are English?”

“Yes.”

“Hmmm, yes, I remember now. I saw you earlier next to the grave of Oscar Wilde. All English people are crazy.”

“Sorry, can you talk a bit more slowly. My French is not very good.”

“You must go now. It is closing time. We lock the gates at six o’clock and everybody has to be out before that.” The man made a motion with his hand like turning a big key.

Sparky didn’t understand every word, but he certainly got the gist. “And that lady over there?” he said, pointing to the pink woman who was still talking to herself.

“Madame Laurent,” the man said, whirling his finger at the side of his head. “Elle est folle. She is mad. She comes here often and talks to ghosts. She already knows we are closing. She will leave soon.”

Sparky stepped out from behind the mausoleum. The shopping bag was still at the foot of Casimir Périer’s memorial.

“That way is out,” the man said, pointing behind him.

Sparky turned and sauntered away. His cover was blown and he was a great believer in the old addage, ‘if you find yourself in a hole, stop digging’. So he made for the entrance, hoping Ken would be nearby and they could formulate a plan B. He took one last look at the crazy lady and left the scene.

If you’ve followed this blog, you’ll be aware that I mix personal interest with purely food and culinary content. One of my hobbies is writing and my eleventh book called ‘Picasso’s Secret’ has been released. ‘Picasso’s Secret’ takes a move away from my ‘Island Connection’ series and is the first in a new series called ‘The French Collection’. Here’s a bit about it.

Web of Tangled Blood -‘The French Collection #1’

Web of Tangled Blood stretches the nerves as Florence and Ken rekindle old feelings and old desires while they search for their lost son. But there is more than one elephant in the room as they struggle to understand their past. Meanwhile, Florence’s brother is making life as difficult as he can and it is only by bringing Harry (Harriet) Lewis over from her home on the Isle of Man that Florence and Ken can begin to make sense of the mutitude of problems that beset them. But Harry has her own issues to deal with.

WEB OF TANGLED BLOOD

The heat of the sun had died a little as Florence and Ken set off for Montmartre, the highest point in Paris. Florence had suggested they get out of the apartment for an hour for some fresh air. “Clear the fug of wine,” she had said as she put the empty bottle into the bin for glass recycling.

It was like a village within a city and, at the beginning of the twentieth century, many well-known artists had studios or worked in or around Montmartre. People like Salvador Dalí, Modigliani, Monet, Toulouse-Lautrec, Mondrian, Picasso, and Vincent van Gogh. Little wonder that it had become a magnet for today’s ‘bobos’ – bourgeois bohemians. These were the caviar socialists who wanted to be seen to ‘feel’ the hardships of the working classes. They could never pull it off, of course, because everybody knew they were today’s affluent yuppies. You had to be, to be able to afford to live in the Montmartre ‘village’.

Despite it being a tourist trap, there was a certain welcoming atmosphere to Montmartre. It didn’t take long to get there in Florence’s red Mini Cabriolet. She found a parking spot at the foot of the hill and dived into it before anybody else could grab it. Then they took the funiculaire, the little cable railway, up the steep slope to the top. Facing them was the white basilica of the Sacré Cœur. It was an ornate building which, in style, would have been more suited to Red Square in Moscow. It was a building that Florence disliked, nicknaming it ‘The Wedding Cake’. So she turned her back to it and stood at the top of the steps, staring out over Paris.

“I love the view from up here,” she said. “It’s like you can see Paris with its pants down.”

“You like seeing things with their pants down don’t you?” Ken said, smiling.

Florence huffed and shielded her eyes from the sun, which was just beginning it’s long downward trajectory in the West. The water on the river Seine looked as thought it was stationary from up here. The late afternoon sun stretched its sparkly fingers across the long, twisting ribbon of water with promises of more good weather to come. A good day for friends, wine and lunches on the terraces of the brasseries.

Standing behind her, Ken rested his hands on her shoulders. He lowered his head so his line of sight was level with hers. Their cheeks touched. Florence was aware of their closeness and found it difficult to concentrate. She pointed to the Eiffel Tower but was thinking that, if she leaned back, her head would be in the crook of his shoulder.

Ken continued to point out various landmarks, seemingly oblivious to the intimacy of their bodies. “If you look this way,” he said, leaning in and turning her body, “you can see that bloody awful Pompidou Centre. And over there, there’s Montparnasse Tower; another monstrosity that blights Paris. But when you block those out of your mind and take in the whole vista, you’ve got to admit that Baron Haussmann made a damn good job of redesigning and rebuilding the city.”

For several minutes, they stood together admiring the view, saying nothing. Florence was enjoying being in such close proximity to Ken, who had one hand raised to shield his eyes from the startling reflection of the sun. The last time they had been so intimately connected was the day before Tristan had disappeared.

As Florence turned to face him, Ken took a small step back as if to distance himself from her. “Shall we grab a coffee?” he asked, as if realising that he had broken his own self-defined personal space. “As I remember there are loads of cafes in the streets behind the church.”
She nodded and followed as Ken marched off without her.