The Vintage Caper (Sam Levitt Capers Book 1)

When doing his research before leaving L.A., Sam had been amazed at the rise in value of the 1980s vintages of premier cru Bordeaux. Between 2001 and 2006, for example, Margaux had gone up by 58 percent, and Lafite by 123 percent.

“The name of the grape, so the historians tell us, comes from the Italian moscato. That is to say, musk. Now, musk is very highly thought of among deer.” Vial permitted himself a roguish twitch of the eyebrows. “It is the scent with which they—how shall I put it?—issue an invitation to deer of the opposite sex. Indeed, musk is also used as an ingre

I’ve heard the Villa Gallici is a nice place.” And so it proved to be—small, charming, and a two-minute walk from the cafés and other delights of the Cours Mirabeau.

The Cigale Récamier, a five-minute stroll from the hotel, was one of Sam’s favorite stops in Paris. Hidden away at the end of a cul-de-sac off the Rue de Sèvres, it had all the qualities he liked in a restaurant. It was simple, unpretentious, and highly professional. The waiters had been there forever; they knew their métier to a fault and the wine

Why was it that airlines tried to conjure up haute cuisine with no more than the impossibly limited facilities of a cramped galley and a microwave? It never worked. He decided to stick to bread and cheese and good red wine, but even this was less than he had hoped for. The label on the bottle was impressive, the pedigree irreproachable, the vintage

For the most part, the Provençal might be relaxed, even cavalier about timekeeping, but his appetite is not; the stomach must be served at noon.

In short, she was a prime example of bon chic bon genre. On his previous visits to France, Sam had often heard the phrase—usually abbreviated to BCBG—used to describe people of a certain class and style: they were chic, they were conservative, and they were devoted to anything made by Hermès.

The French have a talent for restaurants of all sizes, and a special genius for huge spaces. La Coupole, for instance, which opened in 1927 as “the largest dining room in Paris,” manages despite its vastness to retain a human scale. The Café Marly, although smaller, is still, by most restaurant standards, enormous. But it has been designed so that

Sam found the Montalembert to be its usual charming self. Tucked away off the Rue du Bac, the hotel is small, chic, and friendly. The younger, less grand ladies of the fashion world descend on it each year during the collections. Authors, their agents, and publishers haunt the bar, looking intense over their whisky as they brood about their royalti