The Well

If you're a fan of that growing class of novels written by Englishmen who have chucked everything and moved to France, you'll probably like The Well, with its combination of mystery, corruption, and sex against the backdrop of la France profonde.
 

A down-on-his-luck Englishman decides to visit some friends in rural France but almost immediately gets caught up in a bizarre mystery. The descriptions of sleepy villages and rural France set a nice stage for the unexpected plot twists and unusual characters (including not one but two braless women - a detail that I could have lived without).
 

While the story was interesting enough, The Well really suffers from lack of an editor. There are numerous spelling mistakes (some of which have been corrected since my copy was printed), and the writing can be somewhat awkward and redundant.

Mike Briley, author of The Well, lives in south-west France.