Monsieur Pamplemousse And The Militant Midwives

The acclaimed creator of Paddington Bear dishes up a dastardly plot for Monsieur Pamplemousse and Pommes Frites to unravel. It isn't every day that a coffin explodes during a funeral ceremony. Barely escaping with his life, thanks to a warning howl from his faithful bloodhound Pommes Frites, Monsieur Pamplemousse can only wonder who was behind the explosion . . . and if they were also responsible for the demise of the coffin's inhabitant. But then another urgent matter comes to his attention: a terrorist group is planning to poison the food chain. Monsieur Pamplemousse, together with Pommes Frites and a rather strange ally, must spearhead an elite.

Having delivered a stirring speech at his colleague's funeral, Monsieur Pamplemousse is disturbed when the coffin explodes into flames during the ceremony. Luckily, Pommes Frites gives out a warning cry just in time so there are no casualties.

Monsieur Pamplemousse finds himself in deep water when an unfortunate collision with a Mother Superior is caught on camera by the French tabloids. To avoid media attention, he is sent to report on chef André Dulac, currently in line for Le Guide's top award of the Golden Stock Pot Lid, and opens a can of worms which threatens the very sanctity of France's premier gastronomic bible. Being on the verge of haute cuisine takes on a whole new meaning, and his attempt to get at the truth by harnessing a state-of-the-art TV camera to his ever-faithful hound Pommes Frites, ensures that outside broadcasting will never be quite the same again.

Bond's charming food inspector and part time detective has a tricky task in sampling the appalling cuisine of the Hotel du Paradis. Tricky due to the fact that it's run by his Director's formidable aunt, and intriguing given the tales of the effect of the hotel's food on it's gues

The Channel Tunnel is all very well as a mundane means of crossing La Manche but there are those who still believe in airships as the luxury transport of the future. In a rare spirit of entente cordiale, the governments of France and Britain agree to a trial run, and plan a grand inaugural flight involving their heads of state. But - quelle horreur! - the organisers have overlooked the most important part of every French occasion - the food and the wine. Honour is at stake and a desperate call for help goes out to Le Guide, France's most distinguished gastronomic publication. Monsieur Pamplemousse, ex Surete sleuth turned food inspector, is called on to rectify matters.The assignment gets off to an inauspicious start. As he nears the launch site in Brittany, Monsieur Pamplemousse's 2CV is run off the road by a carful of decidedly ungodly nuns. And the lady trapeze artist who rescues him clearly has something other than the evening's acrobatics preying on her mind. When an old friend cuts him dead, he suspects the worst...

According to the Director of Le Guide, France's premier gastronomic companion, it is high time his inspectors moved with the times and opened their ranks to the fairer sex. And who better to oversee their initiation than Monsieur Pamplemousse?However, when the Director, normally a model of rectitude, hints that on no account must the trainee be allowed to make the grade, Monsieur Pamplemousse is suitably outraged. His indignation lasts only until he hears her name. The Director is right. The lady in question is known to be utterly unscrupulous in the use of her considerable physical charms and her permanent engagement would cause unrest amongst the other inspectors, not to mention their wives.But there are other problems. Having blackmailed the Director into taking her on, why is she so insistent on staying at the Hotel des Dunes; an out-of-the-way establishment in the Gironde, unremarked even by the Camping Club of France, let alone by any of the major guides? Certainly not because of the food, as Monsieur Pamplemousse dejectedly discovers.And why, having created a scene because she didn't get the room she wanted, should one of her first acts be to photograph the dismal interior of the hotel?When Monsieur Pamplemousse's ever-faithful bloodhound Pommes Frites is seen ambling back to the hotel carrying a suspiciously large jambon, Monsieur Pamplemousse realises that once again he must stand firm against the forces of crime...

Ever eager to expand the influence of France's leading gastronomic guidebook beyond her native shores, the Director of Le Guide has been cultivating a useful transatlantic connection in the form of a certain Mrs Van Dorman. Ex-parfumier, presently a publishing magnate and, in her spare time,a fan of private-eye novels, Mrs Van Dorman has deserted the relative safety of La Grande Pomme to accompany a group of crime writers to a recreation in Vichy of a banquet given by Alexandre Dumas before he started work on yet another sequel to The Three Musketeers. And who better to escort her than Monsieur Pamplemousse, Surete sleuth turned top-rank gourmet? Monsieur Pamplemousse himself could think of a number of more suitable candidates, especially when it becomes apparent that the assignment involves a grand entry dressed as d'Artagnan, mounted on an uncomfortably rampant black charger. But when cyanide turns out to be a surprise ingredient of the murder tour it is soon clear that Monsieur Pamplemousse - aided by the unerring nose of bloodhound Pommes Frites - is the only man for the job...

When France's leading gastronomic guidebook decides to launch itself into the expanding health farm market, its Director decides Monsieur Pamplemousse is the man for the job: overweight, underactive, with a blood pressure count that threatens to shoot off the top of the scale.So the former Surete detective finds himself banished to the punitive regime of the Chateau Morgue, a Pyrenean health clinic from which a number of damning reports have already emerged, centred largely on its shady-sounding owner, Herr Schmuck.The Chateau Morgue fulfils Pamplemousse's grimmest expectations; obligatory dawn snow tramps, rock-hard beds and meals comprised solely of muddy spa water. And it also provokes his deepest suspicions. Why does a hearse pay such frequent visits? What is going on in the astoundingly luxurious Tower Block? And what is the significance of the delicious parcel of sausages sniffed out by Pamplemousse's indispensable bloodhound, Pommes Frites? With Pamplemousse and Pommes Frites on the trail truth is finally revealed - but not before their sleuthing stamina has been tested to its absolute limits...