David Downie
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Part adventure story, part cultural history, Paris to the Pyrenees explores the phenomenon of pilgrimage along the age-old way of Saint James Driven by curiosity, wanderlust, and health crises, David Downie and his wife set out from Paris to walk across France to the Pyrenees. Starting on the Rue Saint-Jacques, then trekking 750 miles south to Roncesvalles, Spain, their eccentric route takes 72 days on Roman roads and pilgrimage paths-a 1,100-year-old...
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In his trademark witty and informative style, David Downie embarks on a quest to discover "What is it about the history of Paris that has made it a food lover's paradise?" Long before Marie Antoinette said, "Let them eat cake!" (actually, it was brioche), the Romans of Paris devoured foie gras, and live oysters rushed in from the Atlantic; one Medieval cookbook describes a thirty-two part meal featuring hare stew, eel soup, and honeyed wine; during...
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Swapping his native San Francisco for the City of Light, travel writer David Downie arrived in Paris in 1986 on a one-way ticket, his head full of romantic notions. Curiosity and the legs of a cross-country runner propelled him daily from an unheated, seventh-floor walk-up garret near the Champs-Élysées to the old Montmartre haunts of the doomed painter Modigliani, the tombs of Père-Lachaise cemetery, the luxuriant alleys of the Luxembourg Gardens,...
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A haunting and luminous novelthat explores the dark secrets lurking beneath the stunning natural beauty of a dying timber town.
A mysterious beachcomber appears one day on the coastal bluffs near Carverville, whose best days are long behind it. Who is he, and why has he returned after nearly forty years?
Carverville's prodigal son, James, serendipitously finds work at the Eden Seaside Resort & Cottages, a gentrified motel, but soon finds his homecoming...
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Part adventure story, part cultural history…
Driven by curiosity, wanderlust, and health crises, Downie and his wife walk across Paris on the old pilgrimage route Rue Saint-Jacques then trek about 750 miles south to Roncesvalles, Spain. The eccentric route would take 72 days on Roman roads and The Way of Saint James, the 1,100-year-old pilgrimage network leading to the sanctuary of Saint James the Greater in Spain. It is best known as El Camino...
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An American photographer in Paris is unwittingly drawn into a nightmarish terror plot when one of his daguerreotypes puts both his life and his adopted city in gravest peril There is a Paris that no tourist ever sees-a shadowy secret world of intrigue, betrayal, and murder. The son of a recently deceased CIA agent, photographer and American expatriate Jason Anthony Grant knows the dark side of the City of Light all too well. When an imitation daguerreotype...
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Roman Roulette: Murder in the Catacombs, the Second Daria Vinci Investigation.
For Commissioner Daria Vinci, it was supposed to be a night off, attending a benefit concert for the Institute of America in Rome. But little did the wealthy, distinguished guests know that beneath their feet, in the ancient catacombs, a very different kind of gathering was being held. One that would end in murder. In Roman Roulette, the second Daria Vinci investigation,...
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Rome is the most beloved city in Italy, if not the world. Rich in culture, art, and charm, the Eternal City is also home to some of the most delicious and accessible cooking in all of Italy. Influenced by both the earthy peasant fare of the surrounding hillsides and the fish from the nearby Mediterranean, Roman food makes the most of local ingredients and simple, age-old techniques. Yet while Italian cookbooks abound, no American book has focused...
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A unique combination of memoir, history, and travelogue, this is author David Downie's irreverent quest to uncover why Paris is the world's most romantic city-and has been for over 150 years.
Abounding in secluded, atmospheric parks, artists' studios, cafes, restaurants and streets little changed since the 1800s, Paris exudes romance. The art and architecture, the cityscape, riverbanks, and the unparalleled quality of daily life are part of the...
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Its jaws open wide, a firefighting seaplane skims the glittering Gulf of Portofino on Italy's jagged Ligurian coast, scooping up a lone swimmer named Joe Gary. The super-rich, retired Italian-American has mob connections and a dirty political past. Has he been snatched by accident or murdered? Red Riviera, Commissioner Daria Vinci's first investigation, is a wild ride from the tangled trails of the Cinque Terre to glamorous Portofino to roistering...