Critic/sleuth Pamplemousse has a lot on his plate when he investigates a terrible and strangely popular hotel.

Monsieur Pamplemousse is looking forward to a well-earned break in the South of France courtesy of his employer - all he has to do is collect a piece of artwork for Le Guide's Director. But when his contact fails to show and a dismembered body is washed up outside the hotel, the holiday mood evaporates. As Pamplemousse struggles with the case (and with modern technology) his ever-faithful bloodhound Pommes Frites is on hand offering proof why, during his time with the Paris Sûreté, he was one of their top sniffer dogs.

Ever eager to expand the influence of France's leading gastronomic guidebook beyond her native shores, the Director of Le Guide has been cultivating a useful transatlantic connection in the form of a certain Mrs Van Dorman. Ex-parfumier, presently a publishing magnate and, in her spare time,a fan of private-eye novels, Mrs Van Dorman has deserted the relative safety of La Grande Pomme to accompany a group of crime writers to a recreation in Vichy of a banquet given by Alexandre Dumas before he started work on yet another sequel to The Three Musketeers. And who better to escort her than Monsieur Pamplemousse, Surete sleuth turned top-rank gourmet? Monsieur Pamplemousse himself could think of a number of more suitable candidates, especially when it becomes apparent that the assignment involves a grand entry dressed as d'Artagnan, mounted on an uncomfortably rampant black charger. But when cyanide turns out to be a surprise ingredient of the murder tour it is soon clear that Monsieur Pamplemousse - aided by the unerring nose of bloodhound Pommes Frites - is the only man for the job...

The annual launch of Le Guide, France's most prestigious restaurant companion, is always a red-letter day for its publishers. The year the Director has a particularly momentous announcement to make: the inauguration of the Golden Shock Pot Lid, a unique commendation to the best restaurant in France, awarded not according to the vagaries of mere human inspectors such as Monsieur Pamplemousse, but by the immaculate calculations of Le Guide's latest acquisition - a Poulanc DB23 mainframe computer. However, there is many a slip 'twixt Stock Pot and Lid and when the ceremonial 'Entry' button is pressed the resultant print-out is a travesty of everything Le Guide stands for. All too clearly, someone has nobbled the programme. With only days to go before publication, it falls to Monsieur Pamplemousse to investigate the mystery. Accompanied by his ever-faithful hound Pommes Frites, he is soon up to his ears in a bizarre world of bytes, rams and nibbles, and pitted against a foe who has but one aim in life: to heap disgrace on Le Guide, and in so doing bring about the downfall of Monsieur le Directeur himself...

Bond's charming food inspector and part time detective has a tricky task in sampling the appalling cuisine of the Hotel du Paradis. Tricky due to the fact that it's run by his Director's formidable aunt, and intriguing given the tales of the effect of the hotel's food on it's gues

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