Son of Serge Bastarde: Mayhem in the Antiques Markets of Rural France

By John Dummer

"We sat and stared balefully at the walnut buffet. A rich customer had complained it was ‘making strange noises in the night.’ It was around midnight and we strained our ears to hear, hardly daring to breathe. And there it was – a kind of crunch, crunch, crunching sound."John’s life as a travelling brocanteur (antiques dealer) in rural France is decidedly less colourful after his unscrupulous yet affable partner in crime, Serge Bastarde, marries and decamps to Martinique. But, like a bad penny, Serge returns, his personal life in tatters. What follows is a madcap adventure which sees John being coerced into striking deals with the Romanian ‘mafia’, re-roofing a huge Basque house and getting trapped in a skip in the dead of night, while Serge rides an emotional rollercoaster.Serge may be as faux as some of his antiques but, with John’s help, he eventually strikes gold in this laugh-out-loud romp.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Summersdale Publishers Ltd
• Release date: Jun 4, 2012
• ISBN: 9780857657183

John Dummer

John Dummer has worked as a journalist, broadcaster, press officer and band manager. Following a three-year spell in a windmill in Portugal he moved to the Aquitaine region of France where he lives with his wife, Helen, and works as an antiques dealer.