The French Confection
Encyclopedia
The French Confection is a children's novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

 by British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 author Anthony Horowitz
Anthony Horowitz
Anthony Craig Horowitz is an English novelist and screenwriter. He has written many children's novels, including The Power of Five, Alex Rider and The Diamond Brothers series and has written over fifty books. He has also written extensively for television, adapting many of Agatha Christie's...

, writer of the successful Alex Rider
Alex Rider
Alex Rider is a series of spy novels by British author Anthony Horowitz about a 14-15 year old spy named Alex Rider. The series is aimed primarily at young adults. Nine novels have been published to date, as well as three graphic novels, three short stories and a supplementary book...

 series, first published on 6th January 2003. It is the fourth in the Diamond Brothers
The Diamond Brothers
The Diamond Brothers is a series of humorous children's detective books by Anthony Horowitz, the first of which was published in 1986. The books tell the adventures of the world's worst private detective, Tim Diamond, and his little brother, Nick Diamond, who is considerably more intelligent...

 series. It was included in the omnibus Three of Diamonds
Three of Diamonds (collection)
It follows as the sixth book in the Diamond brothers series about a fourteen year old boy called Nick and his brother Tim who works as a private detective....

in 2004.

Title

The title is a play on The French Connection
The French Connection (film)
This article is about the 1971 film. For the British fashion label, see French Connection .The French Connection is a 1971 American crime film directed by William Friedkin. The film was adapted and fictionalized by Ernest Tidyman from the non-fiction book by Robin Moore...

, a 1971 Oscar-winning film based on the real-life drug-smuggling operation
French Connection
The French Connection was a scheme through which heroin was smuggled from Turkey to France and then to the United States. The operation reached its peak in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when it provided the vast majority of the illicit heroin used in the United States...

 between France and the United States. In the story it is the name of a Parisian cake-shop.

Plot summary

The Diamond Brothers win a dream holiday in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 due to an award from a yoghurt company. On the train, they meet Erica Nice, a French baker, and Jed Mathis, a Texan oilman. The Diamond Brothers mention to them that they are staying at Hotel Le Chat Gris. The steward drops some coffee at hearing this. As the Diamond Brothers get off the train, they are met by the steward who tells them to beware of someone called the Mad American and hands them a sugar sachet. The steward is later pushed under a train.

At the hotel, they see a man in gray who seems to be interested in them. Two thugs, Bastille and Lavache, accost the brothers in the street with a knife, and threateningly demand to know what the steward gave to them. While trying to get away from them, Nick and Tim jump from a bridge into a passing bateau mouche. They are locked up by the gendarmes but when they mention Bastille and Lavache they are hurriedly released.

They return to find their hotel room has been turned upside down. Soon after they are kidnapped and interrogated. They realize they are in a drugs factory, and Nick guesses that the sugar sachet must contain drugs. The criminals try to kill the brothers by giving them an overdose, but fortunately they are taken to hospital just in time, as the Police were out looking for them. The man in grey, who is from the Sûreté
Sûreté
Sûreté is a term used in French speaking countries or regions in the organizational title of a civil police force, especially the detective branch thereof.-France:...

, asks for their help. He is revealed to be from a French company fighting against drugs, and says Le Chat Gris is sometimes used by the Mad American, meaning he thought the Brothers had come to buy drugs. Nick remembers some things about the place they were held and realises the place is in the Jewish Quarter, due to a blue star he saw, and they track down the Mad American - who turns out to be Madame Erica Nice. She is arrested for running a drug smuggling racket after Nick and Tim knock her out with a giant cake when entering her cake shop, 'The French Confection'.
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