Mystery of Henri Pick

In the small town of Crozon in Brittany, a library houses manuscripts that were rejected for publication: the faded dreams of aspiring writers. Visiting while on holiday, young editor Delphine Despero is thrilled to discover a novel so powerful that she feels compelled to bring it back to Paris to publish it. The book is a sensation, prompting fevered interest in the identity of its author - apparently one Henri Pick, a now-deceased pizza chef from Crozon. Sceptics cry that the whole thing is a hoax: how could this man have written such a masterpiece? An obstinate journalist, Jean-Michel Rouche, heads to Brittany to investigate. By turns farcical and moving, The Mystery of Henri Pick is a fast-paced comic mystery enriched by a deep love of books - and of the authors who write them.

This book is light, funny and erudite: a delight, The Mystery of Henri Pick is so ridiculously French that if it started smoking Gitanes while you read it, you wouldn't be entirely surprised, A charming, quirky addition to the whimsical subgenre of books about book lovers, done with a light Gallic touch, A dull pizza chef becomes the author of an unlikely bestseller in this charming novel about the literary life, A charming literary caper... A playfully droll satire of the French publishing scene and a completely delightful jeu d'esprit

Novelist, screenwriter and director David Foenkinos was born in 1974. He is the author of fourteen novels that have been translated into forty languages. Several of his works have been adapted for film, including Delicacy (2011). The Mystery of Henri Pick is the first title in a new collaboration with Channel 4's Walter Presents.