The Sea Captain is a fraud. The truth is that he has never commanded a ship, nor served in a navy, nor is he even a particularly good sailor. But he is a famed seducer, lover and rogue, and all his friends greet him by his title as if he were the genuine article.

In the city of Marseille he is a popular figure: at his local café he is recognized as a genial host and a great raconteur. A young English friend acts as chronicler and biographer in this collection of eleven ribald tales, recording the erotic exploits of the Sea Captain’s drinking companions, interspersing these with the man’s own colourful life-history.

These are stories of brothels and their madames, of low life sailors and rich Venetian contessas, of waitresses and boulevardiers, crooks and convent girls, all combining in a rich, steamy bouillabaisse of exotic Mediterranean sex and casual encounters: ménages à trois, passionate trysts, lesbian intrigues and ill-starred lovers.

In the seductive setting of Marseille’s Vieux Port, The Devil’s Whisper is both an original and arousing read.

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