Another fine instalment in this long-running series that has a little bit of everything, including the start of Pel’s devotion to Yorkshire Pudding. Pel is mainly puzzled by smoking a pipe, something he hoped would impress the widow Madame Geneviève Faivre-Perret, since he thinks it very English to smoke a pipe, and she, he is told, likes things English and smoking a pipe will not only impress her, it will cut down on the killer cigerettes he smokes. That is the theory; the practice is quite something else à la Monsieur Hulot.
What starts out as a traffic accident soon embroils Pel in art theft, murder, fraud, and espionage. He is shaken to realize Frenchmen are willing and able to sellout the country and, consequently, all the more determined to bang them into the slammer très vite, too, Mon Brave!
De Troq, not yet on the team, puts in a brief appearance. Misset as usual blows it. Judge Polovari saves Pel’s hide, while Judge Brisard nearly drives him bats.
The plot involves the Tour de France, and offers Pel many chances to comment on the idiocy of riding bicycles up mountains in the rain! It is an ingenious idea, by the way. Only Pel sees the bigger picture while each of his detectives, apart from Misset, sees only a portion. Misset sees nothing, par for the course.
Pel’s courtship of Madame Faivre-Perret remains in abeyance. She is away and he is uncertain. In fact, he almost approaches another women only to discover, well Sergeant Nosjean discovers it…. and not a moment too soon!
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