When her post office burns down, postmistress Véronique starts lobbying for its replacement. But her fellow residents of the small commune of Fogas in the French Pyrenees are too preoccupied to rally to her cause.

Mayor Serge Papon, overwhelmed by grief at the death of his wife, has lost his joie de vivre and all taste for village politics (and croissants) and it seems as though deputy mayor Christian (whose tendresse for Véronique makes him her usual champion) will soon be saying au revoir to the mountain community. And to Sarko the bull.

Add to this a controversial government initiative to reintroduce bears to the area and soon the inhabitants are at loggerheads, threatening the progress of the sacred Tour de France and the very existence of Fogas itself.

In yet another tale with more ups and downs than a Pyrenean horizon, things are about to get grizzly.

(P)2013 Hodder & Stoughton