PAINTED LADY, BELLE DAME is a novel of migration, romance and inheritance set in central France. Richard Davidson, world-wary, takes us on his personal journey of discovery as he seeks to re-connect with Charlotte Vanessa Hindle, lying in a coma in a clinic at St. Cyprien. His path to Charlotte deep in 'La France Profonde' is strewn with signs of passions and riddles from the past. Lucien, the crippled boy, Pius the priest, Honore the carpenter, Dr. Campanac and Josephine, the Baron Hugues Maximilien and his son Aristide - each character he meets gives him special guidance. He must find the key to the music-box, climb the Dog's-head hill, search for statuesque black virgins, see fields dressed to kill, avoid Sten guns and temptations, hide in bucolic pigeon-coops- and all the while interpret what his path crosses. As he forages he finds he must seek back 30 years in time to the Occupation by the Nazis, in 1943, to find answers.But even so, he must still pick his way through emotional brambles and historical thickets and not lose his guiding humour. His discoveries, of nectar or salt, bring full-bodied yet subtle sustenance to the discerning reader, as his quest leads up to its explosive denouement."