Casting a shadow over the Côte

When you're in one of the most divine places on earth, it's difficult to imagine anything bad happening. However, things are rarely how they appear on the surface. Dive deep and one often finds a much darker world beneath.

The Riviera Times swims through the murky depths of crime and corruption this month, from unscrupulous swindlers to town mayors: and the nasty truth is that we can all be tricked by a good fraudster. 

Unfortunately, where one finds money and a good quality of life, one also finds greed, gluttony and those who'll do anything to anyone to line their own pockets. Maugham called it, "A sunny place for shady people”. Fitzgerald looked beyond the beauty into a moral void. Greene only found Nice’s dark side. Dense in irony, the Riviera has always been a writer’s dream. For the rest of us, it's worth remembering that things are not always as they first seem.