Son of an accountant, he grew up in a small French town near Saint-Tropez and got a business degree.

FORBES: What Makes Mille Tick

Two hours by car southwest of the Athens airport, Porto Heli is a pretty yachting town that increasingly resembles a Greek version of Saint-Tropez.

FORBES: Amanzo'e: Amanresorts in Greece

And to the east, with a very different attitude to dress, Brigitte Bardot brought fame to the fishing port of Saint- Tropez in her 1956 film And God Created Woman.

BBC: The perfect trip: Provence and the C?te d��Azur

Eleven miles to the southwest of Saint-Tropez, the Domaine du Rayol is a garden overlooking the sea, which brings together the best of Mediterranean and Mediterranean-style landscapes, from Provence to Australia.

BBC: The perfect trip: Provence and the C?te d��Azur

Today, in addition to her rambling home and studio, she owns a house on 35 acres in the South of France, near Saint-Tropez, where she retreats for most of the summer to work.

WSJ: Reformed Bad-Girl Artist Tracey Emin

When the novel came out in Paris, from a different publisher, Morini had already made his fourth and fifth films, a conventional but engaging French detective story and a turkey about a supposedly amusing family vacation in Saint-Tropez.

NEWYORKER: ?lvaro Rousselot��s Journey

In the once rarefied fishing village of Saint-Tropez, the 300-foot super-yachts and private jets of the new-nouveau riche were gassed up and fruit-of-the-month-vodka-stocked, the Estonian "special-events models" booked, the guest lists of bold faces edited to meet gossip-column requirements.

WSJ: Death of a Playboy