Passionfruit

Description

Quintessential Pennac; readers of his novels will find here the wry prose and wittily inventive plotting that characterise his fiction. Benjamin Malauss ne and family are far from happy when his fortune teller younger sister Ther se marries the aristocratic Count Marie-Colbert de Roberval at a televised wedding - a ceremony from which Marie-Colbert has unceremoniously banned the madcap Malauss ne clan. Two days later, Ther se turns up in Paris's Belleville quarter back early from their honeymoon, only to narrowly escape death as her fairground caravan is mysteriously torched to the ground. When that same day his sister Ther se's husband is found dead at the foot of his luxury apartment's stairwell, Benjamin Malauss ne, professional scapegoat, packs his bags ready for the police to haul him off. Only it's Ther se the police arrest when she refuses to disclose her whereabouts the night of her husband's murder. Without her alibi - which might have something to do with her sudden pregnancy - it's over to Benjamin to save the day. Family and friends join forces to leave no corner of Paris unturned in their search for the true culprit.

Daniel Pennac was born in Casablanca in 1944, his father being in the army. He travelled widely in his youth, in Europe, Asia and Africa, and has been employed in a number of capacities, including woodcutter, Paris cab driver, illustrator and schoolteacher. His "Belleville Quintet", written round the character of Benjamin Malaussene has been published in many languages.