Riviera Blues

Crang, the smart (and often smartass) criminal lawyer, finds himself embroiled in a mystery while on vacation on the French Riviera.

Like all the criminal messes Crang has ever found himself embroiled in, this one begins in perfect innocence. As Crang is leaving for a holiday on the French Riviera with his movie critic girlfriend, Annie, his rich-as-Croesus former father-in-law appears to ask if he’d mind checking up on an errant family member who is said to be hanging out in Monaco. Crang says he’ll do the favour, a decision that drops him into a series of ever-tighter spots on the Cote d’Azur. Crang and Annie enjoy the Riviera’s pleasures, but lurking in the background, gathering in menace, is a piece of elaborate fraud that includes murder as part of the nasty package. Crang has no choice except to solve all the riddles, nail the murderer and, if he’s adroit enough, to eventually tip the scales of justice in the good guys’ favour.

Jack Batten, after a brief and unhappy career as a lawyer, has been a very happy Toronto freelance writer for many years. He has written thirty-five books. Batten reviewed jazz for the Globe and Mail, wrote for the Toronto Star, and reviewed movies on CBC Radio for twenty-five years. Not surprisingly, jazz, movies, and crime turn up frequently in Crang’s life.