Rating: 
Summary: As hard-boiled as a souffle de jour...
Review: An enjoyable book, despite its limitations. Its a raconteur's culinary romp only thinly disguised as a mystery, too busy having fun restaurant-hopping and people-watching to make much effort at anything deeper. The characters are likeable, if somewhat two-dimensional, the story line is plausible, the satire palpable. The book pokes fun at the effette artistic pretenses and materialistic snobbery of the rich and famous, while drooling over the culinary escapades their incomes allow. What it lacks in plot-layering and tension-building, it makes up for in the upbeat tempo of the bon vivant lifestyle. I could have done without the salacious innuendos and the veiled chauvenism, but it was mild enough, and in the end I just gave in to the gaiete de coeur.
Rating: 
Summary: Fun novel, despite the weak ending
Review: Andre, a magazine photographer finds himself embroiled in an adventure that includes a forged C?zanne, an immaculately attired magazine editor, her ruthless boyfriend, a beautiful woman, a dashing art dealer, Paris and lots of good meals. The prose is warm and friendly, enveloping the reader instantly, the plot is well twisted, and the characters appealing. The book races from one funny and enjoyable event to the next. Sadly, instead of legging it past the finish line with a spectacular ending, Mayle shuffles and falls at the ending. It's almost as if he ran out of time and just ended the book. It doesn't match the pace and feel of the rest of the novel. But, regardless of the watery ending, the book is solid, meaty and well worth reading.
Rating:
Summary: Fun novel, despite the weak ending
Review: Andre, a magazine photographer finds himself embroiled in an adventure that includes a forged Cézanne, an immaculately attired magazine editor, her ruthless boyfriend, a beautiful woman, a dashing art dealer, Paris and lots of good meals. The prose is warm and friendly, enveloping the reader instantly, the plot is well twisted, and the characters appealing. The book races from one funny and enjoyable event to the next. Sadly, instead of legging it past the finish line with a spectacular ending, Mayle shuffles and falls at the ending. It's almost as if he ran out of time and just ended the book. It doesn't match the pace and feel of the rest of the novel. But, regardless of the watery ending, the book is solid, meaty and well worth reading.
Rating: 
Summary: "Chasing A Plot" is More Like It
Review: As a fan of Peter Mayle, I can't tell you how let down I was by this extremely slight, jetsetting-but-going-nowhere novel. I enjoyed the lighthearted A Year in Provence and Hotel Pastis, so I wasn't expected War and Peace by a long shot. But this (perhaps mercifully) short novel does nothing to evoke the landscape, whet the reader's appetite for fine food and gracious living, or even hint at character development. Too many stock characters (the dashing photographer, the take-no-prisoners editor, the perfectly pressed art dealer, the starry-eyed first-time-in-Paris ingenue). And the quick pacing leads to a disappointing denouement, which is -- sacre bleu! -- even more lackluster than the author's description of the colorful art which is purportedly being "chased." The extra star is only for my fondness of Mayle's other books: Otherwise, I'd only give it one. Two dreary thumbs down.
Rating: 
Summary: I Adored this Book!!!!!
Review: Camilla is a posh British editor of the american Mag DQ. Andre is usally her favorite photographer,But something happens that he gets to involved in something someone she knows is carrying out...It is a novel about love, life, and everything in between. This is probably one of the most fun books I have read in a long time. The thing that adds the most to it is that I was on the French Riveira at the time I had read it. I stayed at La Reserve in Beaulieu, I had lunch at a friends house in Cap Ferrat. It was just so more real reading it in the process of being in all the places Andre was going, St. Paul in Vence, Nice, Cap Ferrat.. it was heavenly!! One of the main things Peter Mayle focuses on is the relaxed life in The south of france, and if you are not into that kind of lifestyle, then there is no way you will enjoy this book.
Rating: 
Summary: disaster
Review: I cannot say that this book is a great literary work but there is something very light and enjoyable about it. It was fun to read. I have read most of Peter Mayle's books-I loved Toujours Provence,A Year in Provence and A Dog's Life...this isn't that caliber but it holds its own....it seems fitting that this book ventures into the art world....I would recommend this book-go ahead and buy it-it is only (price)-it takes about 3 hours to read.
Rating:
Summary: Fake Cezannes and Frou Frou Fiction
Review: I loved Mayle's "A Year in Provence" and "Toujours" and based on the pleasures of reading those two books picked up a $4 remaindered paperback edition of "Chasing Cezanne." What a disappointment! The characters are two dimensional; all dialogue is stilted and hackneyed. The plot is a fallen soufle. Mayle should stick to what he does best: non fiction travel writing.
This book gets one star and that's for Mayle's brief, veiled appearance in the character of Andre Kelly when he makes his prounouncement on "The French Paradox."
Rating:
Summary: Delightful!
Review: I thought this book was really fun and entertaining. It's been a few years since I've read it (I have all of Peter Mayle's books), and I think I'm going to reread it and enjoy it all over again. Those who think it's clumsily written are missing out on its sheer entertainment value. I thought it was great. I'd write something more specific, but don't remember enough details. Maybe I'll come back after the reread! But I would definitely recommend this as a fun departure from Mayle's typical "here's what I did with those silly French people" approach.
Rating:
Summary: clumsy and hastily penned Mayle
Review: I've enjoyed several of Mayle's other books, but this one is an amiable clunker. The mystery plot is buried under the guise of globetrotting and eating good food. The book would have read much better without the dumb chase scenes (the "hit man" following our narrator) and with more meals. After all, it's mood, ambience and food that Mayle specializes in, not characterization and plot, both of which are sorely lacking. This book is so mediocre that it's not even a good beach read. You won't care much what happens in this "art" mystery because the plot is so thrown together. One gets the feeling his editor said, "Okay, we need a book in a week." I won't hold it against Mayle since his other books are much more charming, but this one is almost totally devoid of this usual charm.
Rating:
Summary: A Fun, and Funny, Caper in the South of France
Review: If you like fast-moving and exciting action mixed with jet set characters, haute cuisine, and treachery among the fine art set in the South of France, then this book is for you. Peter Mayle has written another fun-filled novel that takes you on a merry ride from New York to the South of France. Characters include an honest and fast thinking photographer and his adorable assistant, a devilish magazine editor, and various amusing and interesting characters from a world most of us don�t know but are all too glad to visit for a time. The famous chefs who flavor the novel with mouth-watering menus and taste- tempting dishes make reading a savory experience as well as filling the reader with a desire to hop on the first plane to finer eating. Descriptions of restaurants from out of the way inns in the French countryside to the trendiest in New York City make the book a vicariou culinary experience par excellence. As for mystery and mayhem, there are fine art thieves and their accomplices, the relentless hit men who do their best to throttle the photographer and his string of good guys. All in all, this is a book that is fun to read, hard to put down, and that will make you long for sunny vacations with a bit of flare.
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