Anything Considered is a fun story of a jack-of-all-trades looking for work, who stumbles into a sticky situation with truffle poachers in Monte Carlo.
The first sixty pages are a bit slow setting up the premise: Julian Poe, a hideously wealthy Englishman living in France, hires Luciano Bennett to live in Monte Carlo and pretend to be him so that Poe can avoid paying taxes as a full-time resident of France.
In his first week at Poe's Monte Carlo home, Bennett botches the delivery of an important package meant for Poe, and this is where the real story picks up and starts running. The package meant for Poe was a secret formula for growing large black truffles, but it ends up in the hands of Italian poachers. The Italians decide to hold an underground silent auction, inviting other seedy poachers to bid on what could help them corner the global truffle market.
While wholly improbable and fantastic, Anything Considered is a terrific read, simply because it is light, fast-paced and funny. If you find yourself too stressed for the melancholy of Goethe or the intensity of Proust, this is a good diversion for taking a breather, running yourself a nice hot bath, and forgetting the troubles of the day.
And, of course, it's a must-read for anyone with a taste for truffles . . .
