Do Not Touch

When French mafioso Oscar Lux saved Clovis Baccara from killing himself, he became the boss and something of a mentor to Clovis. Twenty years later, it is no surprise that Clovis is named best man when Oscar decides to settle down and get out of the business. Fulfilling his role as second-hand man, Clovis is entrusted with the job of guarding Oscar's new bride when Oscar is taken into police custody for embezzlement and racketeering on the day after his wedding. Alone on his boss's honeymoon in Los Angeles with Oscar's incredibly attractive new wife, Clovis tries his hardest to adhere to the one rule he has given himself, the rule which gets harder to heed as each moment passes: do not touch.

"[Laurrent's] books are impressive ones, both by virtue of their quality and their range." -Warren Motte, Fables of the Novel

"Eric Laurrent [is] decidedly one of the most virtuosic of our young writers." -Jean-Claude Lebrun, l'Humanit矇

"A small, admirably crafted novel, on the whole, conceived to delight and exasperate all at once. A successful wager, as always." -Bernard Quiriny, chronicart.com

"Mr. Laurrent has a taste for lexical rarities and delights in scientific descriptions. . . . Mr. Laurrent's hyper-realistic writing gives forlorn and silently political snapshots of contemporary Paris." -Economist

"Part of Laurrent's talent lies in his ability to reinvent (or perhaps subvert) a commonplace theme by means of language as well as humor. Together they allow the author to maintain an ironic distance that aptly reflects the modern condition." -Donald J. Dziekowicz, World Literature Today