The King of Fools by Frédéric Dard
Just picture yourself the scene: blue sea, white sand, hot sun, and beautiful girls wandering around... But troubles start when one of them get into your car, on a mistake.
And troubles get even worse when our lucky hero, Jean-Marie Valaise, a sales representative for office adding machines, realizes that this pretty English woman Marjorie is already married.
Although his girlfriend Denise has finally come up for the holidays, Jean-Marie Valaise abandons her on the French Riviera and flies away towards rainy Edinburgh: the mysterious Marjorie has let him know she will be there alone for a while, before her husband comes.
But, guess what? When he arrives, the jealous husband is here, more or less aware of what has happened! And when the two men are brought face to face, this farce turns into drama... The police catches Jean-Marie, who naively thinks he will be discharged if he tells all the truth. But reality turns out to be much more complicated and Denise's intervention will eventually save our hero, after many adventures which you will have to discover by yourself.
Frédéric Dard, one of the most famous French crime novel writers is well-known for his hero San-Antonio, whose name was randomly chosen on a map: although his first novel was published in 1940, he is still translated today! Well-known for his work on language, with a style close to Céline's, he has published nearly 300 books, and truly this one has to be read.
This book is part of the Burgess programme.