Book excerpt: St. Tropez offers all the pleasures a growing boy could want—as well as all the danger After the Wall Street crash and the onset of the Great Depression, Stuart Cosling wants something different than his typical American life, so he takes his sizable fortune and beautiful, young French trophy wife and moves to the undiscovered paradise of St. Tropez. Here he has the home, the vineyard, and the precocious son he has always wanted. Within a few years, his status on the island grows from that of new arrival to local celebrity. Their son, Robbie, grows up. By his teenage years, he has become a terribly handsome man, and while on a cruise, he learns the pleasures that manhood can bring. Now Robbie is impelled to chase that feeling and try to find the love that he deserves. Perfect Freedom has all the hallmarks of Gordon Merrick’s finest work: scenic locales, beautifully rendered characters, and outrageous emotion oozing from every page.