Gérard Meylan

Boyhood friends, one wealthy, one poor, walk parallel paths as painter Paul Cezanne and writer Emile Zola leave Provence to conquer Paris’ art scene.

A witty, spirited and action-packed adventure about an almost-thirteen-year-old boy named Nono, his world of confusions, fears and fantasies.....Nono has been brought up by is workaholic single father, a famous police inspector. He longs to be as good a detective as his dad but constantly gets himself into trouble. His free-spirited mother disappeared and died when he was little. Gaby, his father's secretary, cherishes Nono ad recognizes the anguish of a child with a missing part. Police mascot and his father's would-be-disciple, Nono struggles with a wildness he can't identify. It comes from his mother. Two days before his bar mitzvah, he is sent off to his uncle's to be straightened out. Once on the train, the over-imaginative boy is given one last chance to prove himself. Together with charming grifter Felix Glick, an old acquaintance of his father's, he travels to the French Riviera and enters a world of disguises, crazy pursuits, chanson and Zohara, a mysterious woman whose secrets will forever change Nono's life.