Murder in the Mist

The romantic holiday to southern France that Jim Collins has so carefully planned with his girlfriend, Teri Hunter, becomes complicated and bizarre from the moment they arrive in Paris. Jim had thought that three weeks in Provence would provide a suitable setting to convince Teri to marry him. A romantic vacation? What a joke that turns out to be. Jim is tall--over six feet and built like a wide receiver, muscular, lean and tough. His hair and eyes are dark brown, his complexion well-tanned. The bump on his long, aquiline nose bears evidence of a previous break. His mouth is full and sensuous. Teri loves the feel of his lips on hers and other sensitive parts of her anatomy. Teri is an attractive, shapely woman with a lean, athletic build--muscular, but definitely female. Her bright green eyes are in sharp contrast to her lustrous coal black hair and well-tanned skin. Jim is passionately in love with her. All along their carefully planned festive route through southern France, the couple keeps bumping unexpectedly into their fellow New York to Paris air travelers and becoming involved in odd accidents and bizarre incidents. A glamorous but frightened redhead, who traveled on their air flight from New York to Paris, on learning that Jim is a policeman, tries to solicit his help. Before she can explain the reasons for her noticeable terror, her companion, an arrogant, powerful US Senator, effectively isolates her from further contact or possible assistance, and she's unable to elude his tight surveillance. Hiking in the woods of the French National Park in Le Camargue--a vast natural area where thousands of flamingos, herons, ducks and other fowls live in the salty sea water marshes along with beavers, racoons, squirrels, possums and herds of wild horses and cows--they hear gunshots, and Jim discovers the body of Meredith Prescott, the mysterious redhead who was so desperately seeking his help. Jim is at the top of the local police list of suspects. Their vacation continues to be marred by a host of improbable episodes--a kidnapped child in Lyon, the grandstand underneath them collapsing at a bull fight, thugs shadowing them, a hostile effort to foirce their car off the road high above the French Grand Canyon and other attempts on their lives as they visit Avignon, Arles, St. Remy, Aix-en-Provence, St. Tropez, Stes. Maries de la Mer, Moustiers Ste. Marie, Gordes and Paris. The couple doesn't understand why they keep finding themselves in these dangerous situations. Teri is frightened and Jim is torn between the desire to protect her and consumed with a need to unravel the mysterious events. Two French government agents, friends of Jim's from the past, pitch in to help solve the international web of intrigue in which Jim and Teri have become innocently ensnarled. The exciting climax erupts in the shawdow of Notre Dame Cathedral on the decks of a dinner cruise down the Seine.