Praise for Holy Smoke, the first in the Antoine series:

"A terrific black comedy …both a blasphemously funny satire of provincial Italian chicanery and a wry acknowledgment of the ambivalence that ambitious immigrants feel about their roots."—The New York Times

"Unexpected deadly demands made in the name of friendship inspire the plot of this quirky mystery novel. Irreverently inveighs against romantic love, cancer and the Paris suburbs."—The Washington Post

"An iconoclastic chronicle of small-time crooks and desperate capers, with added Gallic and Italian flair. Wonderful fun."—Guardian

Antoine, a fanatic billiards player, is asked to watch over a Paris art gallery. When he scuffles with a thief a statue falls and severs his right hand. His maverick investigation leads to the discovery of a series of gruesome killings. Soon Antoine finds himself the prime suspect in the murder of a gallery owner. A game of billiards decides the outcome of this satirical tale which brilliantly captures the world of modern art and the parasites that infest it.

After being, in turn, a museum night-watchman, and a train guard on the Paris-Rome line, Tonino Benacquista is now a highly successful author of fiction and film scripts.