Stephen Clarke Books in Order

Young Englishman Paul West moves to Paris to help a French company open British tearooms. Difficult colleagues, a slippery boss and a complicated romantic life turn his introduction to French customs into a succession of cultural misunderstandings.

Still adjusting to life in France, Paul West opens an English tearoom and experiences Parisian service from the waiter's side. His search for lasting love brings further complications as business, etiquette and romantic entanglements collide.

Drawing on life in France, Clarke offers a humorous guide to the misunderstandings that frustrate visitors and newcomers. Anecdotes about language, manners, work, restaurants, and romance explore how to interpret French customs and get through everyday encounters with fewer mishaps.

Paul West accepts a sunny assignment with a woman investigating supposed caviar trafficking while preparing to cater a friend's wedding. When her real target turns out to be France's president, his holiday begins resembling a badly managed spy operation.

Richie Fisher buys an experimental teleportation device during a New York shopping trip, unaware of its inventor's political ambitions. When Richie's unscrupulous brother gets involved, an invention promising convenience spreads chaos far beyond their family and across the world.

Paul West's Parisian life unravels as his tiny flat, troubled tearoom and romantic past create overlapping crises. Faced with eviction, unemployment and a possible national strike, he struggles to keep his French adventure from collapsing altogether.

Clarke follows the future Edward VII through his long wait for the throne and his enthusiastic embrace of French life. Alongside gambling and scandal, he examines how Bertie's Francophilia and personal relationships contributed to diplomacy and the developing Entente Cordiale.

Clarke investigates how Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo has been reinterpreted in French historical memory. Contrasting accounts, excuses, and the emperor's lasting influence reveal the tension between the battle's outcome and the desire to preserve a heroic national image.

Working for a French politician in Brussels gives Paul West an inside view of the European Parliament's bureaucracy and rivalries. As Britain's membership referendum approaches, his chance to influence events threatens more than the security of his new job.

Royal jokes, mishaps, and anecdotes form Clarke's portrait of Elizabeth II's sense of humor. He follows public ceremonies, difficult encounters, family embarrassments, and Philip's gaffes to explore how wit helped the Queen balance personal identity with the demands of monarchy.

Clarke revisits the French Revolution through parliamentary records and eyewitness accounts, questioning familiar stories about Bastille Day and the monarchy's collapse. He traces reform, political rivalry, and escalating violence to explore how hopes for change gave way to terror and civil conflict.

Stranded in occupied Normandy in 1944, an unprepared naval officer wants only to return home. Instead, experienced agent Margaux Lynd drags Ian Lemming into a Resistance investigation, giving him a humiliating education in the realities of espionage.

Clarke traces a millennium of rivalry between France and the English-speaking world, revisiting conflicts, diplomatic blunders, and competing national memories. From William the Conqueror onward, he uses historical anecdotes to examine how old grievances continue to shape an enduring love-hate relationship.

Facing financial disaster, Paul West travels across America with his French girlfriend in search of a way out. Their journey toward Los Angeles becomes increasingly chaotic as old flames, carjackers and misjudged opportunities interfere with his plans.

Clarke explores Paris through the habits and routines that shape its residents' lives. Streets, water, the Metro, food, art, romance, and apartments become entry points into a city whose daily workings reveal more than its familiar monuments and tourist image.